in England. Erwin Nasse, · On The Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages, and Inclosures of the...

O n

The Agr icul tura l Communi tyof the Middle Ages,

a n d

Inc lo su res o f the S ix teenth Centuryi n

E n g l a n d .Second Edi t ion.

Tr an s l a t ed f rom the German o f

E rw in Nas s e ,by Colonel H. A. Odvey (Late 9th Lancers).

“ In de r Beher r s chung de r Erde l iegt die Kraft desManne s und de s S t a a t e s : d i e Grö s s e Roms i s t g ebau tauf d i e ausgedehnte s t e und unmit te lbar s t e Herr scha f td e r B u rge r ube r den Boden and au f d i e g e s ch lo s s eneEinhe i t d i e se r a l so f e s tgegründeten Bauer scha f t . ” —MOMMSEN.

Originally published 1872.by Williams and NorgateLondon.

This edition published 2003Batoche [email protected]

Erwin Nasse (1829–1890)

Contents

Translator’s Preface. .......................................................................... 5Preface. .............................................................................................. 6On the Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages. ....................... 8Notes: ............................................................................................... 82

Translator’s Preface.The extract from a speech of Richard Cobden, which appeared as aPreface to the First Edition of this work, has been omitted in the presentissue, as it might be supposed to stamp with a political character thatwhich is merely an academical essay.

H. A. Ouvey.29, Hyde Park Place,

January 1st, 1872.

Preface.The translation of this work, which was published under the distin-guished sanction of the Cobden Club by Colonel H. A. Ouvry, C.B.,having now reached a second edition, a few explanatory words fromthe author may not seem out of place.

The original treatise was published in 1869, as one of thoseacademical essays which are distributed annually to the Members ofthis University before the 3rd of August, the anniversary of the day onwhich the University was founded in 1818. These essays are intendedto contain the results of purely scientific researches. Until lately theywere written in Latin, and the present one happened to be the first atBonn which was printed in German. A number of copies of these es-says are placed at the disposal of the author for distribution to his col-leagues at other Universities, and to other persons who are supposed totake a special interest in the subject. A few copies are occasionallysent to a bookseller for sale.

The writer of such an essay thus enjoys the privilege of address-ing himself solely to those who have a thorough knowledge of the sub-ject, and who are conversant with the results of previous researches inthe same field.

My reason for publishing the present treatise in this form was,that I did not consider myself sufficiently advanced in the study of thesubject to enable me to write a complete history of the great changes inthe condition of landed property in England and in its system of hus-bandry, which took place in the Middle Ages and in the sixteenth cen-tury. When I published the results of my enquiries into a portion of thatimportant movement, I was far from expecting that my treatise wouldinterest the general public either of Germany or of England. My sole

The Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages/7

object was to call the attention of the learned to a subject which hadbeen only too much neglected, and thereby endeavour to secure theiraid towards further and more complete investigations.

Such was the origin of my book; and should some parts of itappear unsatisfactory reading to those who have not made the historyof agrarian matters their special study, I must plead as an excuse thecircumstances under which it was written.

The translation of a work of this kind naturally presented manydifficulties. I have done my best to explain to the translator the moredifficult passages and the technical expressions employed in the trea-tise. But it appears to me that certain terms are wanting in modernEnglish for ancient agrarian rights and customs and for practices ofhusbandry, which abound in the German language. That state of thingswhich required those terms and expressions has endured to a compara-tively recent period in Germany, and many German writers have paidmarked attention to the subject, while, in most parts of England, com-mon fields and the practice of co-operative husbandry have long sincebeen almost entirely forgotten. Besides this, I must repeat that the origi-nal treatise was not intended to give either a popular or a completerepresentation of the subject.

I am much gratified by the interest which it seems to have excitedin England, and I trust that in all essential points the translation willcarry to the reader a correct impression of my views and of the resultsof my researches; but, considering the great importance which at thepresent time attaches itself to some of the questions involved, I think itright to state that the responsibility of a correct translation of this trea-tise rests entirely with the translator.

E. Nasse.University of Bonn,

18th November, 1871.

On the Agricultural Community of the MiddleAges.

In the agrarian history of the nations of middle Europe there is no eventof greater weight, or which has led to more important consequences,than the dissolution of the ancient community in the use and culture ofthe land which was then in vogue, and the establishment of a completeindependence, and separation of one property from another. But thisdevelopment had a more especial importance in England, inasmuch asit greatly contributed to dispossess the small proprietor of the soil, andto lay the foundations of that preponderance of large landed posses-sions which has had such an immense influence on the constitutionalhistory of that country.

Up to our time, however, the agrarian history of England is aregion comparatively very little explored; and this may fairly excitewonder when we reflect, on the one hand, by what great exertions andvigilant attention the English have successively inquired into all otherparts of the history of their civilization; and, on the other, how rich thefield is in records from which a knowledge might have been obtainedof the earlier state of the agrarian and agricultural relations of the coun-try. If then a stranger, instigated by the historical importance of thequestion, has been induced to undertake the inquiry, he may perhapsobtain some indulgence should he plead, as an excuse for the possibleshortcomings in his investigations, that such were inevitable on ac-count of the dearth of predecessors in the same field of research.

In one respect we have considered it necessary from the com-mencement to limit our task; that is to say, we have omitted from ourconsideration not only Wales, but also all the coast counties of theWest of England. The agrarian history of these districts offers many


interesting peculiarities, but from the materials now before us we can-not obtain any information as to their development, even with any ap-proximation to certainty. We have also omitted the northern and south-ern districts of the country, e.g., the county of Kent, with regard towhich the materials within our reach were very scanty, and though inthe course of this research we may occasionally refer to them, our in-quiry is still principally confined to central and eastern England.

Remains of the old state of community of land in England arestill preserved at the present time, and on that account we consider thatit will best suit our purpose to make this the starting-point of our ex-amination. One glance at this fact will be sufficient to rectify the errorso often met with among continental writers, viz., that in England, avillage establishment with a community of fields never existed, butthat the cultivation was exclusively managed by separate farms withseparate husbandry.1 Moreover the knowledge of this remnant of anancient land community which has been handed down to us, clears theway to an easier comprehension of the authentic mediaeval recordswhich refer to this subject.

In order to arrive at this knowledge two sources are at our com-mand, one, “The report of the Select Committee on Commons Inclo-sure, instituted in order to frame laws for the dissolution of commonholdings, by order of the House of Commons, in 1844”; and the other,the very carefully prepared descriptions of agriculture in the severalcounties of England, which were published by the then Board of Agri-culture, under the conduct of Sir John Sinclair2 at the close of the lastcentury and the commencement of the present one. The ParliamentaryCommittee endeavoured by a searching inquiry to examine the condi-tions which were affected by the contemplated legislation, and the de-scriptions of the Board of Agriculture are, even now, the best represen-tations which we possess of the agricultural state of a great country,composed especially with regard to the important question of the com-munity in land and inclosures.3

The professional experts who were examined before the Com-mittee in 1844 agreed in their information that in many parts of thecountry plots of arable land in the same township lay intermixed anduninclosed, so that the lands of a rural property consisted of narrow

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parcels lying scattered in a disconnected manner all over the extent ofthe village district (Dorfflur). These arable parcels were for the sepa-rate use of individual possessors from seed-time to harvest, after whichthey were open and common to all for pasturage. They were desig-nated “open commonable intermixed fields,” and also “lammas lands,”because “lammas” is the festival “Petri ad vincula,” on the 1st of Au-gust—or, according to the old calendar by which the reckoning wasthen taken, the 13th August—which was the period at which the com-mon rights of pasture commenced. But there was, however, a differ-ence in this right, inasmuch as in some places it was only the possess-ors of the land which lay intermixed in arable plots, and in others,other classes also of the population who had the right to fallow andstubble pasturage;4 for instance, all householders and burghers of thetown. Those, however, who were not possessors of soil, found manydifficulties in making good their right of pasture before a court of jus-tice, even though they had exercised it for a length of time. (N. 300.)The source of the rights of this last class is partly to be referred to thefact that in many villages the lordship of the soil was vested in theneighbouring towns, and the collective burghers claimed the right ofpasturage as lords of the soil over the urban villages, and partly be-cause, from very ancient times in many places, not only the owners ofthe soil, but all possessors of homesteads had a right to partake of thecommon fallow and stubble pasturage.5 For the cultivation of the com-monable fields there existed universally a field constraint (flurzwang6),and in most of the midland counties, almost without exception, the oldthree-field husbandry—generally, 1st, wheat, 2nd, oats or beans, 3rd,fallow. (N. 1422 and 3360.) Exceptionally there appear also to havebeen manorial properties, on which the arable land was free from thecompulsory rule as to a rotation of crops, but on which the commonright to fallow and stubble pasture remained, which certainly restrainedthe freedom of the cultivator nearly as much as if the usual course hadheld good. (N. 5151, 5155.) On very numerous meadows the samemode of cultivation prevailed; the possessors farmed their parcels sepa-rately for growing hay until after the hay harvest, i.e., till the 6th July(Midsummer-day according to the old style), or the middle of July;then the whole of the meadows to Candlemas or the middle of Febru-


ary were common open pasture. The permanent pasturage asunpartitioned common land, was in uninterrupted common use, butchiefly in the following manner: the occupiers of the small holdingshad merely the right of use of the common pasture, the actual propertybeing vested in the lord of the manor, a condition that will be fullyinvestigated hereafter from old authentic records. None of the expertswho were examined could give any precise information concerningthe extent of this system of husbandry in 1844, but they had no doubtthat it was very considerable, especially prevailing, according to theopinion of one of the best informed, in the parts of the country whichhad been first cultivated, and on the best kinds of soil. (N. 185, 186.)

More precise reports on the community in land, and especiallyon the three-field husbandry in different parts of England, are given inthe before-mentioned description of the counties, which were publishedand issued by the Board of Agriculture. In nearly all parts of the coun-try, particularly in the midland and eastern counties, but also in thewest, for instance in Wiltshire, and in the south, as in Surrey, and in thenorth, as in Yorkshire, extensive open and common fields were to befound. In Northamptonshire, out of 317 parishes, 89 were in this con-dition;7 in Oxfordshire, over 100;8 in Warwickshire, some 50,000 acres;9

in Berkshire, half the county;10 in Wiltshire the largest part;11 inHuntingdonshire, out of 240,000 acres—the whole area —130,000 werecommonable meadows, commons, and common fields.12 Generally, thecommon lands, with the exception of the homesteads and farmyards,were divided into three principal divisions: arable land and meadows(both in separate possession but with common regulated rights of use),and common pasturage. Sometimes might be added a fourth part, asmaller inclosed portion of the common land excepted from the com-pulsory cultivation, in the vicinity of the homesteads.

As succession of crops on the arable lands for this community,from Yorkshire down towards the south, and from the North Sea as faras Wiltshire, a three-field husbandry generally prevailed; only excep-tionally in some districts, as for instance in Oxfordshire here and thereon good soil;13 in Huntingdonshire14 and in Wiltshire,15 also four-fieldhusbandry, viz. fallow, wheat or barley, beans or oats, barley or wheat.This last system may have arisen out of a two-field husbandry, as it has

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been likewise reported that such a system held good always inOxfordshire and Wiltshire, particularly on poor soils,16 and which someten years earlier Arthur Young found also in Lincolnshire in the openfields, 1st, fallow, 2nd, corn of some sort.17 Quite isolated, however, isthe declaration of the same writer that in Suffolk there were common-able lands on which two years’ fallow always succeeded to one wheatcrop.18 Of particular places only, it was reported that five or six ex-haustive crops followed one after another without either fallow ormanure, and then one fallow year with a heavy manuring; but it wasimpossible to judge from the information how far in these successionsof crops a degenerated three or two-field husbandry was involved.

The witnesses all agree in their information concerning the ex-traordinary intermixture of the arable plots in all these places, withcommon village husbandry. The arable land attached to a possessionlay in high ploughed-up little ridges, scattered over the whole extent ofthe township, and in many places the larger possessors had, out of 100acres and above, never more than two or three together in one parcel.

The manuring was done principally by turning the common flocksof sheep on to the fallow at night time, and also in a measure by stallmanure; which was, however, very scanty, on account of the free com-mon pasturage.

We find also that in the districts in which this agrarian systemprevailed, the farmers and small proprietors in the village always dwelttogether. The description enlarges concerning this point with regard toNorthamptonshire, and this is written by a Scotchman (J. Donaldson).It strikes the relator, that in Scotland the management was carried onby separate farms, while the English proprietors, not only inNorthamptonshire but also in other parts, still lived crowded in vil-lages. Marshall, however, remarks that this has its limits, and only ap-plies to those places where the above-mentioned community of land-exists or had formerly existed; when, however, the land was inclosedon being first taken into cultivation, as was the case in the west, therewere dwelling-houses and farm-buildings on the lands belonging tothe same.19

In the descriptions of the counties we find repeatedly that in theabove-mentioned land communities, the properties were for the most


part small, a fact which is of great importance for agrarian history. InHuntingdonshire, for instance, in the inclosed parts of the county, largefarms were the rule, commanding a rent of from £200 to £500 yearly;in the region of the open fields the farms bore commonly a rent of from£50 to £150. The relative state of Northamptonshire is similar, wherein the inclosed districts the farms are, on an average, double the size ofthose in the unin-closed. In Oxfordshire, small properties were to befound almost exclusively in the open fields. The official reports ofBuckinghamshire20 and Wiltshire21 are especially interesting from thispoint of view. There, the uninclosed commons were still divided intoyards of land, yardlands, the mediaeval virgatae terrae, the Anglo-Saxon “gyrde lands.” All yardlands were, as it appears, originally ofequal value, but of a different size, according to their condition of soiland position. In Buckinghamshire, they were from twenty-eight to fortyacres of arable land with the corresponding right of pasture. In Wiltshirethe yearly value of these small peasant properties varied from £18 to£25 sterling; a few however reached £40. To a yardland of £20 sterlingyearly rent, belonged about two acres of meadow, and eighteen acresof arable land (which lay scattered amongst the common fields in abouteighteen or twenty plots), as well as a share in the common pasturage,and other common rights of use. The extent of the right of pasturagewas usually for forty sheep and as many cows as the peasant couldmaintain through the winter. The occupier of these small hides heldthem originally by copyhold, which however gradually in the courseof time became converted into a lease for three lives, or into a freehold.The consolidation or fusing of these peasant properties into large farmsthence followed in rapid succession, and on many of them the old farm-buildings stood deserted and in ruins; but still a considerable numberremained, and were separately farmed. These peasant properties origi-nally made up the greatest part of the manors to which they belonged;there was only one large farm on each property, the domain of the lordof the manor, which, as a rule, lay separate from that of the peasant.Williams, in the Archaeologia, vol. xxxiii. p. 270, describes a perfectlysimilar constitution of a manor in Oxfordshire, and traces it by recordsinto the sixteenth century. The manor consisted of sixty-four yardlands,of which the greater part had gradually passed from the possession of

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the peasant to the private use of the lord of the manor. To each yardlandbelonged a house and farmyard, twenty-four to twenty-eight and three-quarter acres of arable land, a share in the commonable meadows, whichfor each, came to some seven and a half or eight and a half acres, andthe right to turn out eight oxen or cows, or six horses and forty sheepon to the common pasture. The relator considers it likely that in an-cient times, in addition, there was a right to as much firewood as wasnecessary, and also wood for building purposes, and for erecting therequisite fences. The arable land lay in numerous small plots of half anacre and under, mingled together in confusion, and, as Williams writes,was farmed by a four-field husbandry (wheat, beans, oats, fallow), whiletwo centuries before the three-field husbandry was there commonly inuse.

These witnesses, therefore, sufficiently show that in a consider-able part of England the old English peasantry,22 as we still see themeven in a measure in more modern times, held the land in common,precisely as the present villagers of the greater part of middle Europehold theirs. But with regard to this, let us hear the views of a man inmodern times who had an intimate knowledge of the agrarian constitu-tion of his native country, and was far more fitted to judge of thesematters than others. Marshall has often expressed his conviction, thatseveral centuries ago the soil of nearly the whole of England lay in anuninclosed condition, and was more or less in a commonable state. Inthe treatise23 in which he enters most fully into these matters he givesas his opinion, that the division and use of land in several parts ofEngland differed indeed somewhat, but in the central and greater por-tion not widely. Every village, he says, in the immediate vicinity of thedwelling-houses and farm-buildings, had some few inclosed grass landsfor the rearing of calves, or for other cattle which it might be thoughtnecessary to keep near the village (the common farmstead or homestall).Around these home inclosures lay the arable land, divided into fieldsof nearly equal size, and usually three in number, on which winter andsummer crops and fallow followed in succession. In the lowest grounds,“and in the water-formed base of the rivered valleys, or in the boggydips adjoining the arable land, lay meadow ground for hay harvest.”The more distant land served for pasture and wood, but the pasturage


was of two distinct kinds; the inlying portion of a better kind called“stinted,” on which there was a limit as to numbers and kinds of cattle,milch cows, draught cattle, and others which required better food dur-ing the summer; and the common pasture, on which every one couldturn out as many cattle during the summer as he had fodder to supportduring the winter. Thus the whole acreage of the township was dividedlike one great farm which was made use of by the joint tenants accord-ing to a uniform plan. It is only in the extreme west, says Marshall, thatthis system has never prevailed; there, from very early times up to thepresent, the custom held good for the lord of the manor to assign por-tions of the common pasturage to the inhabitants who had rights ofuse, to be ploughed up for wheat cultivation, restricted however to twocrops. After a period of two years the land was again thrown open fora lengthened period, and returned to common pasturage, and a freshportion of the common pasture was broken up.

For the reasons which we have already stated at the commence-ment of this work, it is not our intention to enter into the question ofthis irregular convertible husbandry, nor the paring and burning whichlikewise prevailed in the west. In the agricultural description ofCornwall, these systems are described as customary only on outlyingand poor lands, while the better plots in the vicinity of the homesteadsat that time were already commonly farmed by a regular convertiblehusbandry.24 (Vide Appendix C.) We cannot however refrain from re-marking, that it is altogether in the nature of things, that with this, aswell as with every other system of husbandry in which the period of acommon use far exceeded that of a particular use, generally the severalportions of the whole extent of the acreage were not the private prop-erty of individuals. There was no advantage in retaining as private prop-erty that which in ten years’ time would be of no practical value; aconstant fresh partitioning of the plots of the district each time theywere broken up for cultivation was much more convenient. Privateproperty first came into vogue with arable land, on which private use,in relation to common use, had a longer duration.

On precisely similar grounds, where the arable land was privateproperty, the meadows were generally found to be in common; so thatthe plots destined each time for hay harvest were assigned to indi-

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vidual joint owners, in alternating positions by an allotment which wasconstantly renewed. Since meadows were neither cultivated nor ma-nured, any assignment of particular spots for cultivation was not nec-essary; it was only for the short period of hay harvest that each had hisportion assigned to him, and it appeared much more convenient al-ways to make a fresh partition, as the portions assigned were often soexceedingly small that it was most difficult to retain them as separateproperty during the long period of the common use of the land. Thatsuch common meadows have been preserved in great numbers in En-gland, even to the most modern times, was made clear to the Commit-tee of 1844, especially by Mr. Blamire, who, from his office as a com-missioner for the commutation of tithes, was very intimately acquaintedwith the agrarian condition of the country. The customs with regard tothe partitioning of meadows for growing hay were of a most variednature. The most general practice, however, was to divide the meadowland into as many plots as there were persons who had the right ofpasture, and then to distribute the particular portions among them bylot (lot meadows). Very often, however, the division by lot was perma-nent, and the use of each lot for hay harvest was then changeable byturns to all those interested, so that he who one year had lot 1, next yearwould have lot 2 (rotation meadow). Two plans were attached to thereport, one representing the lot meadow, and the other the rotationmeadow. On the manor described by Williams, in Oxfordshire, therewere also lot meadows, which were divided into “hams,” each bearinga particular name, after ancient offices and handicraftsmen of the manorwhich no longer exist, such as the great steward’s ham, the waterhayward’s ham, the water steward’s ham, the smith’s ham, theconstable’s ham, &c. &c. These divisions for a lengthened period wereallotted among the possessors of yardlands for hay harvest; there be-ing, however, a very considerable difference in the quality of the haycrops. Each hide had its particular mark; the marks were thrown into ahat, and at each hay harvest the several plots of meadow land were thusdistributed by lot.25

It was not, however, the meadows exclusively, but occasionallyalso the arable land, which underwent this change in private use (sev-eralty holding), as Mr. Blamire officially stated before the Inclosure


Committee. But this arable land was not changed annually in the samemanner as the meadow land, each owner retained the portion whichfell to his lot throughout the usual succession of crops. Unfortunatelythe nature of these successions of crops was not given, neither is theplace mentioned where these shifting severalties in arable land occurred.We have tried in vain to obtain further information concerning thesevery interesting conditions, which might form an instructive supple-ment to our Gehöferschaften in the district of Treves. In no other place,either in the writings of ancient or modern authors, have we ever foundsuch an agrarian arrangement mentioned. However frequent it may havebeen with regard to the meadows, it must have been very rare in re-spect to the arable land; and, it would be well worth the trouble, tomake a closer research into the archives of the Inclosure Committee inorder to ascertain whether similar conditions of rights existed on thefields which were separated under their authority.

After this cursive glance at the community of land, which in En-gland we see extending into the most modern times, we will proceed toan examination of it through the evidence of ancient records; which,however, we shall have frequent occasion to illustrate in detail by moremodern reports on the remains of agrarian conditions.

Although agrarian relations have a tendency to a more lastingduration than other human institutions, still it appears necessary, inorder to be correct, to make a distinction between different periods, ofwhich the first and most suitable to our purpose will be that from theAnglo-Saxon times to the Norman Conquest.

The greater part of the earlier researches into the history andconstitution of the Anglo-Saxons gives no information whatever onthe question which is now before us. Certainly, something is to be foundin the writings of Phillips, Palgrave, and Leo, on the district associa-tions and land settlements; but K. Maurer, in his admirable researchesinto the state of the Anglo-Saxon laws,26 has estimated these remarksat their true value. Of more recent inquirers, it is well known that Kemblehas sought to prove, that the constitution of the Anglo-Saxon common-wealth was founded on mark associations. But Kemble was never in aposition authentically to prove the agrarian community upon whichthese mark associations were founded, and it is with full justice that

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the careful author, E. Schmid, says, “that true mark associations (i.e.,communities) existed, the organization of which was founded on a com-munity of pasture and wood rights, has never been proved by Kemble,however much he may have written concerning pretended mark asso-ciations in England.”27 With regard then to the smaller village commu-nities, which are to be distinguished from the great mark associationsof the “gâ” and “scire”—mentioned exclusively by Kemble — KonradMaurer justly observes, that we can learn nothing in that respect eitherfrom Kemble or any of his predecessors, while we must conclude, fromthe nature of the partitioning of land according to families, as well asfrom the occurrence of the word “thorp,” and ether similar designa-tions of names of places, &c., that, besides numerous separate farms,not less numerous villages as well, belonged to the same tribe. Unfor-tunately, however, he was not in a position to fill up these lacunae.28

The results, therefore, of recent researches lead to the conclusionthat the sources are very meagre, and the traces very faint, whence todraw even an imperfect picture of the agrarian community of the Anglo-Saxons.

The names of places show that, among the Saxons, only the dwell-ing-place—that is, house and homestead —was inclosed; the arableland and the pastures being open and unfenced. Out of 1,200 names ofplaces which Leo collected from the first volume of Kemble’s “CodexDiplomat. Ævi Saxonici,” 137 were formed with “tun.”29 This word, itis well known, is identical with the modern “town,” the Dutch “tuin”(garden), and the German “zaun,” and was, as E. Schmid remarks, lessused by the Anglo-Saxons to signify “that wherewith a space is in-closed, than the inclosed space itself.” We may, however, see veryplainly that it was principally house and homestead which bore thisname; for instance, in the laws of Alfred I. § 2, in “cyninges tune”;§13, on “eorles tune.” Even at the present day the courtyard in thecountry in England is signified by the word town.30 Apparently, as wasalso the case in Germany, not only the individual homesteads, but alsoseveral situated near each other, were surrounded by an inclosure; whichexplains the reason why not only the homestead, but also the wholevillage, was called “tun.” In many places — for example in the laws ofAthelstan II, FR. §2, where an expiatory fine is to be divided among the


poor of the town; as well as in Edgar IV. c. 8 — which we have yet tonotice — the word “tun” cannot be intended to be used for individualhomesteads, but only for places, which latter meaning became later theruling one.

Among a considerable number of names of places, two other root-words occur, which Leo justly remarks are synonyms of “tun,” “ham”and “wurð,” “weorðig,” “vurðig.” He calls attention to the fact thatthis last word often distinctly takes the place of “tun” in the names ofplaces, as in the case of Cataractona, the Latinized form ofCetrihtworthig.31 On this account also in the laws of Ina, c. A, 40,“Ceorles weorðig sceal beôn wintres and sumeres betyned,” in the“vetus versio,” which, probably at the latest, dates in the times of thefirst Norman kings, is properly translated “rustici curtillum32 debet esseclausum aestate simul et hyeme.” There was no ground for differingfrom this, and translating “inclosed land,” or “inclosure,” as Schmidhas done; or “praedium,” according to Lye.33

In designating the house and homestead as the inclosed spot, itwas intended to imply that the rest of the land as a rule was not perma-nently inclosed, and it is certainly a strange error of Leo34 (thoughKemble35 agrees with him), when he concludes from the occurrence ofthe word “tun” in so many names of places, that in Anglo-Saxon timesthe permanent inclosure of the fields by hedges was as common inEngland as at the present time, whereas for centuries these inclosureshave been in progress as one of the most important of agricultural nov-elties.

The inclosed abodes of the Germanic peoples everywhere com-prised, in addition to the house and courtyard, as much land as wasrequisite to form a garden, kitchen-garden, and for flax and other cul-ture which required a constant protection against the common stubbleand fallow pasturage rights and wild beasts, as well as smaller inclosuresfor cattle requiring especial care and attention, and which could be putup in the farmyards in the village. As the population increased, theseinclosures in the villages were found to be too small for the above-mentioned purpose, and consequently isolated plots of land, very fer-tile and well situated, were inclosed outside the village to meet therequirement. There can be no question that there were small inclosures

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of a similar character in England at the Anglo-Saxon period,36 althoughon account of the poverty of our sources, we may not be able to distin-guish in every individual case the primitive ones appertaining to thehomestead, from the secondary ones outside the village. We see, forinstance, frequently mentioned in the ancient documents, inclosed grass-land, “gerstun,” “syntrimaede,” a meadow withdrawn from the com-munity; further, it occurs, especially in the boundary descriptions ofthe grants of land; “stôdfald,” an inclosed plot for horses (“Cod. Dipl.”Nos. 356 and 1193);37 “oxena gehaeg” (loco citato, No. 769); “oxenawic” (1.c. 1204), oxen inclosures; “sceap-hammas” (“ChroniconMonasterii de Abingdon,” I. p. 153), inclosures for sheep, “flaxhammas” (1. c. p. 208), an inclosed spot for cultivating flax.

Opposed to these permanently inclosed plots, in the old agrarianarrangements of the greater part of the German tribes the rest of theland was only inclosed when it was withdrawn from the communityfor the purpose of cultivation. The cultivated arable land from seed-time till the end of the harvest, and the meadows from the commence-ment of the growth of the grass in spring to the end of the haymakingseason, were inclosed with fences and preserved against the access ofcattle and wild beasts, &c. &c. At the conclusion of this private use,the land again reverted to common pasturage. It was necessary, then, toput up fences at each inclosed season, which in the time of commonpasture were again either partially or wholly removed.

Some half-century ago, or less, the custom of inclosing the fieldsperiodically—already abrogated a long time since in Germany in thevillage and three-field husbandry—existed here and there in England;for example, at Nottingham, where each 12th August, at the commence-ment of the common right of pasturage, the inhabitants of the townissued out on to the acreage, and threw down the hedges and destroyedthe gates, which at the beginning of the seed-time were again set up bythe landlords.38

Anglo-Saxon official records bear testimony to this constant andrepeated work of fencing. We have, besides the so-called “rectitudinessingularum personarum,” also two records in which the agriculturallabour of serfs is enumerated, Codex Diplom. N. 461, and the inven-tory of the rural service of the “ceorlas of Hysseburnan,” Nos. 977 and


1077. The “gebur,” we read in the first record, “acertyninge xv gyrdeoððe diche fiftyne (the peasant shall hedge 15 yards, or ditch round 15yards)”; and, in the second, “and xvi gyrda gavoltininga eac on hioraagenre hwile (he shall also hedge 16 yards as service, in his own freetime).” Thus, fencing belonged to the regular work of the peasants.The demand for wood necessary for this hedging must have been veryconsiderable, and it is on this account that Domesday Book refers sofrequently to forests used especially for this purpose: “silva or nemusad clausuram—ad sepes—ad sepes reficiendas—ad sepes et domus,”once also “rispalia ad sepes.”39 In this regularly recurring work, as wellas in the great demand for wood to erect these dead fences, there lies aproof that the inclosures were not made for a permanency, either witha live hedge, or with a ditch.

In the common village husbandry system, it was not the separateplots of individual possessors that were inclosed in common, but thewhole of the parcels of the village acreage cultivated with winter orsummer crops, or destined for haymaking. Of these common inclosures,and thus of the village husbandry, a remarkable testimony is to be foundin the laws of King Ina, c. 42: “Gif ceorlas gearstun haebben gemaenne,oððe oðer gedalland to tynanne, and haebben sume getyned hiora dael,sume naebben—and etten hiora gemaenan aceras oððe gaers, gan þa,þonne, þe þaet geat agan and gebete (n) þmm oðrum, þe hiora daelgetynedne haebben, þone ae (f) werdlan þe þaer gedon sie.” Literally,“if ceorls” have a common meadow, or other partible land to fence,and some have fenced their part, some have not—and eat up their com-mon corn or grass; let those go who own the gap, and compensate tothe others who have fenced their part the damage which there may bedone, &c. &c. Price and Schmid remark very justly that there is a hia-tus after “naebben,” which they fill up from Ina, c. 40: “und recenheora neahgebures ceap in,” and his neighbours’ cattle stray in and —. Each had his hedge to make at the boundary of the common fields, aswe find equally elsewhere in the common village husbandry, that eachpeasant farmer had to fence his plots in the winter and summer fields40

where they touched on the common boundary. Every one was thenanswerable to the rest of the common shareholders for his own hedge,in a similar manner as it was prescribed in the Jute Law (L. iii. ch. 58),

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and, not indeed for the field fence, hut the village one, in the AbbeyPram. (Si quid furatum fuerit in curte per noctem et per sepem exierit,componet ille per cujus glavem41 exierit, et si per totam, componentomnes de villa.42)

It is well known that there are two opinions concerning the na-ture of the separation of the arable land from that used for pasturageamong the oldest German races; one is, that there existed an irregularconvertible husbandry43 which took particular spots from the wholeacreage irregularly by turns, and brought them under the plough, whichafter having been used for several years again reverted to pasture: asystem of husbandry which we have already spoken of as having beenprevalent to a great extent in the west of England even down to themost modern times.44 The other is, that, from the first appearance ofthe German tribes in history, there was a permanent separation of thearable land and pasture, and that arable land was cultivated accordingto the rule that at a later period prevailed in the greater part of middleEurope, and, as we have seen, in the eastern and midland counties ofEngland, in which a three-field husbandry was most generally preva-lent.45

There is much which indicates that at the time from which ourAnglo-Saxon sources date, since their first formation, a permanent sepa-ration of pasture and grass land had been the rule. The records con-cerning grants of land mention almost universally the number of hidesconceded, and their constituent parts. The formulae in which this wasdone are collected by Kemble (“Codex Diplom.” vol. i. p. 38, et seq.).They are generally expressed thus: “so many hides ‘cum campis,pascuis, pratis, silvis;’” or “cum omnibus ad se pertinentibus, campis,pascuis,” &c.; so that the “campi,” as arable land, were separated fromthe pastures and meadows. Sometimes, in rare cases, in the representa-tion of the principal component parts of the hides, the arable land wascompletely omitted, and the appertaining pasture, meadow and wood,was alone mentioned. For example; “cum silva, quas eidem telluriadjacet, ut cum pratis, pascuis, aquarum rivulis;” or “cum omnibusutensilibus, pratis videlicet, pascuis, silvis.” Of these different appur-tenances, only the meadows, and sometimes the rights to mast andpasturage on the common and royal lands, were distinctly laid down;


but it is clearly visible, from these representations of the “prata,”“pascua,” as appurtenances of the hide, that the arable land was sepa-rate from the pasture. It is a further proof of the permanent separationof the arable land from the pasture, that the yrthland (arable land) isquoted frequently under distinct boundaries; and in particular instances,also, the area of the conceded arable land, as well as that of the mead-ows, is laid down; for example,

“Codex Dipl.” N. 1154—“fonne ligcað be norðam porte xxxvi.aekera yrðlandes and x. aeceras maede.” At the end of the Anglo-Saxonperiod this separation was at any rate quite general. In Domesday the“terra” for so many ploughs, or so much plough land, was always dis-tinguished from pasture.

Naturally this neither excludes from our view, that in earlier timesthere existed generally an irregular convertible husbandry in the east-ern and central parts of England, nor that exceptionally such a condi-tion here and there was preserved for a length of time. It has beenremarked by several trustworthy observers, that the common pastureand heaths in England in many places showed very apparent traces ofthe plough; and sometimes former ridges even were plainly to be dis-tinguished (see Marshall, especially “Midland Department,” p. 17).These phenomena are not difficult to account for, when we considerthat in former times a convertible husbandry existed, in which firstone, then another portion of the common pasture was broken up by theplough, before the permanent separation of the arable land from thepasture came into vogue. In Germany it is well known that a convert-ible husbandry exceptionally occurs together with a permanent state ofthe arable land in the mountain regions, on distant poor lands, andindeed sometimes on commons, in which a periodical change of theyears of arable use prevails. Two Anglo-Saxon records appear to us topoint to a like condition. The question is of common land, of which acertain portion is an appurtenance of the land which is private property(see “Codex Diplo.” 633), where three hides and thirty jugera wereceded, one mill, and as much mark land as belonged to three hides;“and þaes maerclandes swa micel swa to þrim hidon gebyrað;” alsoNo. 1169, “and on þan gemanan lande gebyrað þarto fif and sixti accera.”It is very clear that the question here is not one of common pasture, for

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in that case a particular area would have no meaning. These two casesare easily to be understood, if we consider that a certain portion of thecommon pasture was taken up and applied temporarily to arable pur-poses.

With regard then to the distribution and use of the arable land, wecan obtain additional proof of the occurrence of its intermixed state,and of a husbandry regulated on the principle of a community, whichwas before probable from the passage cited from the laws of Ina. At afirst view, it is truly remarkable that in the greater part of the grants ofland which form the subject of most of the title-deeds, the boundariesof the conceded plots are given at the end of the document, and appearas plots lying together. Waitz, in his treatise on the old German hide,46

mentions that in the German title-deeds of the same period, though thefarm and farmyard were described, with an accurate statement of theboundaries, the hide never was, and he sees in this an indication of theintermixed condition in which the component parts lay in the villageacreage. We may be tempted to form the inverse conclusion from theaccurate boundary description in nearly all the Anglo-Saxon grants ofland, that the hide was in one connected piece. But, it must be takeninto consideration that most of the title-deeds contained Royal grants,not for particular hides in village communities, but for extensive tracts.There are often grants for 30, 50, to 100 hides, and thus apparentlylarge manors, which comprised either whole village communities orwhich were entirely distinct from them. And in these manors an agrar-ian community was again formed by the tenants among themselvesand with the lord of the manor, as we see shadowed in the “rectitudines”and some other records, but fully developed in the period next follow-ing. Certainly in the less frequently occurring smaller grants of land, asa rule, not the boundaries of the conceded lands, but either none at all,or those of the whole village acreage, in which the ceded hides weresituated, were laid down. In the first case where no boundaries at allwere shown, in some of the title-deeds, a reason was expressly giventhat the omitted boundary descriptions resulted from the intermixedposition in which the ceded acres lay. In the “Chronicon Monast. deAbingdon,” vol. i. p. 384 (Kemble, “Cod. Diplom.” N. 1278), Aethelredcedes five hides, “cujusdam loco sed communis terras, qui celebri aet


Ceortatune nuncupatur nomine.” The record concludes, “rus namquepraetextatum manifestis undique terminis minus dividitur, quia jugeraaltrinsecus copulata adjacent” (A.D. 982). In another case the same con-ditions were laid down thus: “þises landgemaera syn gemaene sua þaetlið aefre aecer under aecer.” — “Chron. Abingd.” I. 330, “Cod. Diplom.”N. 1260 (A.D. 962). This is expressed still more plainly “Chron. Abingd.”I. 304, “Cod. Diplom.” N. 1234, “þat nigon hida licggead on gemangoðran gedallande feldlaes gemane, and meada gemane and yrðlandgemane” (A.D. 961); that is, partitioned land, and yet in community—an expression which would imply that it was private property, but sub-ject to rights of a common husbandry. The other case, however, with-out doubt is still the more frequent one, where the boundaries of thewhole village acreage in which the conceded hides lie, are laid down atthe end of the title-deed. It then runs thus: “Concedo — mansas invilla;” and at the end, “þis synd þe landgemaera aeð.” &c. There issufficient proof of this custom in the fact that in different grants of landin the same place the same boundary is laid down. Thus, for example,the boundaries are essentially the same in N. 427, and in 1198 of Cod.Diplom. The first from King Eadred (A.D. 949) of 18 mansae that hegrants fideli Wilfrico, in Welingforda; the second, from King Eadrig(A.D. 956) of 22 mansae, that he gives “cuidam ministro Eadrico.” Theboundary descriptions in Nos. 291 and 292 are still more strictly iden-tical, as also in Nos. 300 and 302; but this last is not undoubtedly genu-ine. Further, in “Chron. Abingd.” I. pp. 350 and 352, and also in 248and 250. In the last two instances the expression “aecer under aecer”occurs, which the author of the Chronicle in an appended glossary justlyexplains by “intermixed lying” (þis sind þa landgemaera to Draituneaecer under aecer). But our view, that the boundaries of the title-deedsmarked often the whole extent of the place, and not the separate con-ceded plots of land, is shown in the clearest manner by the title-deedsin the “Chron. Abingd.” I. p. 98, in “Cod. Diplom.” N. 1134, in whichKing Eadmund concedes to his servant Aelfsige 30 hides at Waltham.It follows the boundary description, which is prefaced by the words“þis sind þa landgemaero þe to Wealðam hyrð þara þritiga hida,” andwhich, at the end of the boundary description, “þonne heafð Eadmundcing gebocad Aelfsige feowertyne hida binnan þam þretigum hidum

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landgemaero, ofer wudu, ofer feld, ofer ecen laese and to ecan urfe,and xii maeð aeceras at þaere standan butan þaw landgemaerum.” Theking thus further assigns 14 hides that lie inside the boundary of the 30hides, and 12 acres of meadow in their position outside these bound-aries.

We have no means of determining either from laws or from title-deeds the number of fields into which such common acreages wereseparated, or the rotation of their cultivation. One of the latter, how-ever, contains a notice by which we may arrive at a probable conclu-sion that the acreage was divided into three fields, and cultivated onthe three-field husbandry system, viz. “Codex Dipl.” No. 1216, in the“Chron. Abingd.” I. p. 180. It there appears concerning a grant of 20hides which was given to the monastery by King Eadwig: “þis sindonþe landgemaero þaesse burlandes to Abbendune, þaes is gadertang onþreo genamod, þaet is Hengestes ige and Seofocanwyrð and Wihðam.”Then follow the boundaries which comprise only one entire piece ofland. Possibly, the question here may be one of different common acre-ages (Gemeinde-fluren), but this is very improbable, for if so, theymust have formed one united whole. On this account we are justifiedin considering it as being three fields of one common acreage. Further,it may tend to elucidate this more clearly if we refer the description“36 aekera yrðlandes qui ter deni ter quoque bini arandi gratia subja-cent” (No. 1154), or the three years’ lease of a farm which is in ourpossession, to a three-field husbandry; but these instances afford nocertain proof of it. Still less can any such proof be found, as Leo sup-poses, in the occasional occurrence of the word “zelga”; for field-zelgae47 may occur as well with regard to another system of husbandrywith permanent arable land as in a three-field husbandry.

It seems that already in Anglo-Saxon times the meadows wereheld in the land community under different conditions. Very frequentlyin the boundary descriptions the meadows were described as belong-ing to the hides, but separated from them; for example, “Codex Dipl.”Nos. 132, 263, 284, 311, 361, 412, &c. &c. In relation to the right ofproperty and of use, it is once expressly mentioned that the meadow inquestion was a private one: “And seo mead, þe þarto (that is, to fivehides at Eblesburnan) gebyreð wið Hunningtun, þes is fifta healf aecer,


seo his sundermed” (“Cod. Dipl.” N. 1118); from which we may wellconclude that this was not always the case. In other places the mead-ows occur expressly as being in common, as No. 396: “And swa meadgemaene swa hio aer was (and there a common meadow where it for-merly was)”; and No. 543, “ane mylne und her gebyriað of þaeregemaenan meade XVI. aecyras (a mill, and its right on the commonmeadow of XVI. acres).” In many cases also it was laid down that to theceded hides of such and such meadows, belonged so many acres—forexample, No. 549. The common meadows may probably have been thesame as those which at a later period were lot meadows, without sepa-rate property in individual plots with periodical allotment of the por-tions: other meadows also there were, which like the arable land wereprivate property, hut subjected to a right of common use for pasturageafter the hay harvest; and perhaps the designation sundermed indicatedthat such had been freed from a community in use.

The third principal component part of the lands of an old villagecommunity, the common pasturage, is frequently alluded to in authen-tic documents. The laws of King Eadgar IV. c. 7, 8, speak of a commonpasturage as an understood property of each “tuns-cips”; thus, “he whorides out after cattle should give notice to his neighbour wherefore hedoes so, and when he returns home he must also notify who were thewitnesses that he bought cattle. If, however, not having that object inview, he should make a journey and conclude a purchase, he must givenotice of it on his return; and if the purchase should have been livecattle, he must place them, with the sanction of the township, on thecommon pasturage. Should he neglect to do this for the space of fivenights, the townspeople shall report the circumstance to the Inspectorof the Hundred,” &c. Not less do the old documents expressly testifyto the rights of common pasturage connected with grants of hides. Thus,“Codex Diplom.” 276: “communionem marisci quse ad istam villamantiquitus pertinebat;” or, No. 395, “and seo laes is to foran eallummannum gemaene on þam heaðfelda,” Nos. 1163, 1357, and elsewhere,as also in the “rectitudines,” in which the neat-herd was allowed tobring two oxen or more on to the common pasturage with the lord’sherd, with the knowledge of his ealdorman.

Common forest also occurs very frequently in the same manner

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as common pasture. Thus, in No. 179, “adjectis denberis in communesilfa;” No. 190, “ut communem silbam secundum antiquamconsuetudinem cumceteris hominibus abeat;” No. 241, “in communesilfa, quam nos saxonice in ‘gemenisse’ dicimus; “or, No. 305, “inþaem wudu, þe þa ceorlas brucað,” Nos. 432, 843, 1142, 1281, &c.

It is impossible to ascertain from these sources what the extent ofthe association was, which thus had a co-partnership in the commonpasture. When we consider the internal grounds which make it appearquite natural that a village community, with intermixed fields, compul-sory cultivation (flurzwang), and a permanent separation of arable landand constant pasturage, had also a common pasturage, and that thiscommon pasturage existed as a component part of a village commu-nity in later times; then there can be scarcely a doubt that such a com-mon pasturage was a part of the lands of every Anglo-Saxon tunscips.

But as the internal evidence of a necessity for it was not the same,it cannot be maintained with the same certainty that there existed inEngland larger mark associations comprising several townships. Wepossess in our collection of records, only one which expressly statesthat several villae and villatae had a share in the common pasture, andthe genuineness of this document is not beyond all doubt.48

Also, if we advance a step beyond the Anglo-Saxon times intothe Domesday Book, which, in a certain measure, marks the boundaryline between this and the next period in succession, we find very littlemore concerning the extent of these pasture and forest associations.The usual expression to represent the pasture there, is, “pastura adpecuniam villae”; more rarely it is called “pasture communes”; in oneplace alone, if we admit the trustworthiness of the Index, there occursin Suffolk, “quaedam pastura, communis omnibus hominibus deHundret,” vol. ii. fol. 339b.

But whatever may have been the extent of these agrarian associa-tions united for common pasture, this much is certain, that besides thepasture and forests, forming the property of these shareholders, therewere other uncultivated lands over which the king had a kind of headseignory. In many title-deeds the kings grant pasture, mast, and forestrights on uncultivated lands, and especially rights of forest, which weresometimes called “king’s woods,”49 and sometimes “common woods.”50


There were also grants of rights of pasture which were to be exercisedin common with the royal cattle,51 in which the rights of the king werelimited.52 By the researches of Allen, Kemble, and K. Maurer, it hasbeen shown that it was in the highest degree probable that this unculti-vated land, on which the king’s right was so extensive, was the “cyningesfolcland.” The king had the power to grant this land, still retaining itsnature as “folcland,” for the private use of individuals; and also to givegrant-deeds, with the consent of the Witena; by which it became bocland,or bookland. In the first case, the property was of a precarious nature,and was charged with many burdens; in the second, it became actualproperty, on which only the “trinoda necessitas,”53 which was commonto all landed property, remained; that is, the duty to service in the field,and to repair bridges and strongholds (expeditio militaris, pontis arcisvereconstructio). In details there is also here a great deal which is uncer-tain and obscure; but the question as to the nature of the Folkland isforeign to our purpose, because, although, as long as it was not grantedand cultivated, its use by the dwellers for wood and pasture, subject toroyal regulation, was in existence, but its affinity to the common landsof agrarian associations was merely a distant one. After the NormanConquest and the introduction of the feudal system, all further men-tion of the people’s land ceases; the greater portion must have beentransmuted into bookland, which then, in common with all other land,reverted to the seignory of the king as the supreme feudal lord. Therest of the people’s land appears to have been absorbed into the “terraregis,” or royal domain.

With the advent of the Norman period, the ground on which wetravel in pursuit of our research becomes much more secure. The ex-tensive survey of all landed properties, which we possess in theDomesday Book, affords much less information for our purpose thanfor other agrarian relations; but the other publications of the RecordOffice, attached to that work, which are very voluminous, are muchbetter suited for our purpose. Of these the Land registers demand thefirst consideration, which are published as additamenta in the 4th vol-ume of the Domesday, viz., — the “Exon Domesday,” “InquisitioEliensis,” “Winton Domesday,” and the “Boldon Book”; the first, how-ever, fails to be of use, as it only comprises the western counties, which

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we have already stated do not come within the scope of this research.The Boldon Book, as entering very fully into detail, is on this accountthe most instructive among them all for agrarian and agricultural his-tory; it is an agrarian relation concerning the couniy palatine of Durhamfor the year 1183. These ground books are, for the 11th and 12th centu-ries, what the “Rotuli Hundredorum” of the time of Henry III and Ed-ward I are as sources for the agrarian history of the end of the 13thcentury; but the latter is of by far the greatest value. The HundredRolls of the counties of Bedford, Buckingham, Cambridge, Huntingdon,and Oxford, set forth in the second volume of that publication, espe-cially, give us throughout a sharp and well-defined picture, even in theminutest details, of the conditions of the landed properties. Of the otherpublications of the same office, the “Placitorum Abbreviatio” has beenof value to us, which contains abbreviated official reports of lawsuitswhich were carried on in the reigns of King Richard I, John, and HenryIII, Edward I and II. To these sources are to be added gome of smallerLand registers, which contain the accounts of the landed possessionsof spiritual corporations, and which are published by the Camden So-ciety, the “Liber Niger of the Abbey of Peterborough,” in an Appendixto the “Chronicon Peterburgense, nunc primum typis mandatum, curaTh. Stapleton, Londini, 1849,” written in the years 1125–1128; theDomesday Book of St. Paul’s of the year MCCXXII, or “registrum devisitatione maneriorum, per Robertum Decanum,” edited, with an in-troduction and annotations, by William Hale Hale (1858), and the“Registrum sive liber irrotularius et consuetudinarius Prioratus BeataeMariae Wigorniensis,” also edited in the year 1865, by William HaleHale, with the addition of an introduction and numerous annotations.The greater part of the Domesday Book of St. Paul’s is a description ofthe property of St. Paul’s Church in London, while the last publicationcontains a precisely similar description of the landed property of theBenedictine Monastery of Worcester in the middle of the thirteenthcentury. But, above all, we are indebted to the preface and annotationsof the learned editor of these rich and instructive records; they are,without any doubt, the best treatises that we have met with on the me-dieval agrarian condition of England. With the middle of the thirteenthcentury commences that comprehensive work, the “History of Agri-


culture and Prices in England,” by J. E. Thorold Eogers, from the yearafter the Oxford Parliament (1259) to the commencement of the Con-tinental War (1793), of which, up to the present time, two volumes(comprising the years 1259–1400) have appeared. The author hasscarcely paid any attention to the conditions which form the subject ofour present research. Community in land and agricultural husbandrysystems are merely casually mentioned; but his book is of a very highvalue for us from its official accounts concerning other agriculturalrelations, especially in giving the prices, which the author extractedfrom the books of the Oxford Colleges, and put into a practical form.To these sources must be added the great juridical authors, Bractonand Fleta; the first on account of his comprehensive and thorough speci-fication of the whole of English law; the second, on account of hisdescription of the interior economy of a manor, in furnishing which henaturally enters largely into agricultural relations. By means of theseauthorities we are enabled to obtain an insight into the agrarian com-munities as they existed in the first centuries after the Norman Con-quest, and the field systems by which their husbandry was conducted.The following sketch will show the nature of these conditions:—

In the whole of this period we find England covered with a swarmof smaller or larger manors (maneria). Already in the Anglo-Saxonperiod these must gradually have overgrown the free peasant propri-etors. The name “manor” alone, and not the thing itself, is of Normanorigin; but without any doubt the Conquest, and the strict applicationof the feudal system with regard to all lands and soils, must have tendedvery much to throw the rest of the small landed proprietors under ma-norial lordships. The size of these maneria differed in an extraordinarymanner. We find in Domesday Book a maneriolum that had only oneplough land, and also large farms of fifty or more ploughs. They werein no wise unalterably fixed as to size, as was the case later since thestatute “Quia emptores.”54 We meet very frequently in Domesday Bookwith partitions of some portions of land, and additions to others. Theinterior arrangement of the “maneria” was very similar to that of theGerman manors (Frohnhofen) with regard to rights and husbandry re-lations. On each of these manors was the house of the lord (curiamanerii,—capitale messagium, —aula domini), with a courtyard and

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garden, &c., comprising often several acres. The arable land of themanor may then be reduced to two principal parts; that is, the terradominica or demesne lands (Salgut), and the terra hominum ettenentium. The land was originally destined for the direct use of thelord, but frequently parts of it were let off. “Isti tenent de dominico”very often occurs in the Land registers, which enumerate all the indi-vidual holders. The legal difference of these “tenentes de dominico”from the rest of the “tenentes” requires a more minute research thanwe are able to afford; but it appears to us that it consists principally, inthat the demesne land could be resumed at each season by the lord forhis own use, if there were no stipulation to the contrary in the lease,notwithstanding its being let; while the “terra tenentium,” according toits intrinsic legal nature, could not be united with the “terra dominica.”The laws of William the Conqueror (I. cap. 29, 81) already point to thiscondition of tenure, the lord could not “removere colonos a terris,dummodo debita servitia persolvent”; and further, “si domini terrarumnon procurent idoneos cultores ad terras suas colendas, justiciarii hocfaciant;” while, on the other hand, Bracton says of the “dominicumvillenagium,” “item dicitur dominicum villenagium quod quistempestive et im-pestive resumere possit pro voluntate sua et revocare.”The portions of the demesne land which were not let off were almostalways cultivated by the labour of the tenants of the manor, and for thisreason the “terra dominica” formed the smallest part of the whole manor,the larger portion being retained in the possession of the tenants. In theLiber Niger of the Abbey of Peterborough, the survey of the propertybelonging to it concludes: “Summa in dominicis maneriis abbatiaa —et ibi sunt in dominico LVII carucae. Et villani habent CC carucas etbovem.” Besides villani, there were also socmanni, lordarii, andcotsetae on these properties. The landed property of St. Paul’s Church,in London, consisted of about 24,000 acres, of which three-eighthswere in dominico and five-eighths terra tenentium.55 On the manors ofthe Benedictine Monastery of Worcester, the “terra dominica” included5,490 acres; that of the villani, 8,210 acres; and the “libere tenentes”possessed 2,280.56 These two classes of tenants alone had thus aboutdouble as much land as belonged to the demesne lands; and, moreover,there remained unreckoned the possessions of 85 socmanni, of 123½


cotarii and cotmanni, and 106 forlandae;57 the superficial extent ofwhich is not given.

Although apparently it will ever be impossible to explain clearlyall the appellations which have been applied to the different kinds oftenants in different places and at different times, still in DomesdayBook, and even more plainly in the later Land registers (especially theHundred Rolls) three principal classes are to be distinguished.

First, the “libere tenentes,” to whom the socmanni, though as aparticular kind, belong. They are to be found in the later Land registersof this period on nearly all properties, but in very unequal numbers,and with landed property of a most varied extent, from half an acre, orendowed with one toft, or one house upwards. In Domesday Book, onthe other hand, they form a comparatively small part of the population.According to Sir Henry Ellis’s reckoning, among the 283,242 personsmentioned in Domesday Book, there were 23,072 “sochemanni,” 18“sochemanni dimidii,” and 12,384 “liberi homines” and “dimidii liberihomines.” According to the careful researches of Hale Hale, it is notimprobable that by no means all the liberi tenentes are given in theDomesday, but that the number of all those who paid a money rentalone is omitted from the account. The amount only of the money pay-ment for each manerium is given under the expression “valet” —s. —d. for each manor. Should this conjecture be incorrect, certainly a verysudden and excessive increase of the “libere tenentes” must have takenplace in the first centuries after the Conquest. In the monastery spokenof, in the year 1240, there were 55 liberi homines and 85 socmanni; inDomesday on the contrary, in the same, only one solitary liber homohabens hidam and two reddentes sextarias mcllis were mentioned. Thesame results are obtained when we compare the Hundred Rolls withthe Domesday. In the Villa de Coteham, in Cambridgeshire (which wehave chosen as an example for comparison, from a totally differentpart of England), in the Hundred Rolls, besides the possessors of man-ors, 26 “libere tenentes” are quoted, while in Domesday there is notone.

Among these libere tenentes, at least in later times, two kindsmay be distinctly traced. One, which held their possessions in consid-eration of money rent, or often a mere nominal tribute, such as a pair of

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gold spurs, a pair of gloves, a rose, a pound of pepper— these were theproper “tenentes in libero socagio”; the other, those who rendered ag-ricultural service towards cultivating the manor property, either exclu-sively or accompanied by a money payment. These last were some-times designated “libere tenentes,” but more frequently socmanni, orliberi socmanni;58 their service, however, was never so oppressive asthat of the class which next follows, and which was formed of thevillani, or peasant serfs, who were principally obliged to perform thenecessary agricultural labours, and occupied nearly everywhere thegreater part of the lands of the manor. This class was named, inDomesday Book—more than in the later Land registers variously, ac-cording to localities. The designation “villanus,” which was alreadyprevalent in the Domesday, gradually supplanted all local significa-tions and obtained in the later Middle Ages a still wider sense. Juridi-cal writers distinguished then, between “villeins regardant” and “villeinsin gross”; the first are those who are tied to the hides and saleable withthem,—serfs, with obligation to afford agricultural services; the sec-ond, actual slaves, without any possessions in land, and saleable bydeed. But the first signification of “villanus” is no doubt the originalone, as the derivation of the word, from “villa,” shows. In Domesdaythey are exclusively called “villani,” the slaves being designated “servi.”

The size of the possessions of these “villani” did not vary so muchas those of the “libere tenentes.” As a rule, rather, in the village de-scriptions (or inventories) it was clearly to be seen that originally thesize of the peasant properties was perfectly fixed and equal on thesame “manerium”; while the individual holdings of the “libere tenentes,”also on the same manor, for the most part differed so much in size thatno conclusion can be formed as to their original equality. On this ac-count we often meet with the distinction between “pleni villani” and“semi” or “dimidii villani,” full and half serfs; but very seldom (andnot at all in the later Land registers) the mention of “pleni” and “dimidiisocmanni.” The original size of a possession of a full serf appears tohave been the “virgata terrae”; but then again the size of this was notthe same in different manors. We find “virgatae” of from sixteen toforty-eight acres, and the greatest difference in the size of the virgata59

occurs on manors immediately bordering on each other; while on the


same “manerium,” of all the “virgatae,” each comprised a like quantityof arahle land. In the north of England the partition of the laud accord-ing to “bovatae” or oxlands prevailed— eight “bovatae”60 being reck-oned to each “carucata”61 (ploughland). Thus, in Boldon Book, the“villani” in Boldon and in several other villages have each two “bovatas”of thirty acres. Now and then also in middle and southern England“bovatae” are found which are equal to half a “virgata”; for example,in Liber Niger of Peterborough Abbey.

It is not the place here to enter more fully into the legal and agri-cultural state of this most important element of the English populationof the Middle Ages, but there can be no doubt that in the first centuriesof the Norman Conquest the English peasants were in a state of themost oppressive serfdom. Objections, however, may be raised to thisgeneralization. Bracton expressly distinguishes two kinds ofvillenagium, viz. a “villenagium purum” and a “villenagium socagium.”A peasant standing in the first category, according to his account, couldbe subjected to unlimited service and burdens by his lord (nec sciredebeat sero, quid facere debeat in crastino—talliari autem potest adplus vel minus). They had not the smallest right to the hides which theycultivated, hut were, according to his description, at the disposition oftheir lord’s pleasure—in short, serfs in the strongest sense of the word.62

The “villani socmanni,” on the contrary, had to afford fixed servicesand dues, and could not be removed from their hides against their will;but on their side they could, at any time, leave their “tenementa.” Eventhis class had no right to sell their possessions; the only way they couldalienate them was in the form of a restitution to the lord of the manor,or to his “ballivus,” who then might let them afresh to the person inwhose favour the former possessor relinquished the property. But thatthe great mass of the “villani” of the period stood in the first categoryis sufficiently proved by the circumstance to which we have alludedabove, that the expression “villanus” occurs as a technical appellation,as well of the state of personal serfdom, as of the agricultural class ofpeasants who had obligatory service to perform. Hence it is very evi-dent that, in popular estimation, peasants with obligatory service andserfs were looked upon in nearly the same light.63 Further, nearly al-ways when the dues of the “villani” are quoted in detail in the sources

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of the period, we find amongst them those which Bracton considers assigns of personal serfdom, and which could not be demanded from freemen, even though they were in possession of a “villanum tenemen-tum.” In these specifications it was almost always expressly mentionedthat the “villani” could not give their daughters in marriage without theconsent of the lord of the manor, and that for this consent a tax wasexacted (merchetum, gersummatio prolis), which Bracton points outexpressly as a token of personal serfdom.64 Sometimes, and especiallytowards the end of this period, the peasants from whom obligatoryservice was due are quoted as “custumarii,” or “consuetudinarii”— forexample, in the statute “de extentis manerii,” as well as in the “ articulivisitationis maneriorum S. Pauli,”65 which in all essential points agreewith the statute, but go more into details; and in the “Hundred Rolls,”II. 403–507, and elsewhere. We might be tempted to perceive in these,the “villani socmanni” of Bracton, but the peculiar personal dues ofthe serfs were also required from the “custumarii,” for instance as re-ported in “Hundred Rolls,” II. 507, and elsewhere. According to the“articuli visitationis” it was the custom to inquire of every “custumarius”“quid et quantum dabit—pro filia sua maritanda?” and,“consuetudinarius” occurs as precisely synonymous with “villanus” inthe “Placit. Abbrev.” p. 161, “homines cognoverunt se esse villanos etconsuetudinarios predicti A. operando quidquid ipse precepit et dandomerchetum pro filiabus suis maritandis.” It is, therefore, inadmissibleto make any difference between “custumarii,” or “consuetudinarii” and“villani,” with regard to their legal status; it appears to us rather to bein the highest degree probable, that in the “villani socmanni” of Bractonwe may recognize the above-mentioned inferior kind of “libere te-nentes”—the not very numerous “socmanni” who owed agriculturalservices.

But if, according to law, the “villani” were in a state of the strict-est serfdom, still by custom the amount of their services had alreadybecome accurately defined at an early period. We find everywhere inthe Land registers exact specifications of the nature of their services;and even where in relation to payment of rent the passage occurs,“taliantur ad voluntatem domini,” the agricultural burdens, both in kindand extent, are accurately determined. It is very certain that the posi-


tion of this class must have been very oppressive, even with regard tofixed services. Generally a man of each “virgata” worked three to fourdays from the 1st August to Michaelmas, and the rest of the year two tothree days per week. Besides this, the peasants ploughed sometimesone day weekly (except during frost and harvest time), sometimes adefinite extent of one acre for the sowing of winter or summer grain,and also, as a rule, for the fallow; they harrowed and sowed the ploughedland sometimes “de proprio semine.” They rendered further extraordi-nary service in the hay and corn harvests, being obliged to turn out onto the farm two or three times a year with their whole households—thehousewife usually being alone excepted (“excepta husewifa”), “admagnas precarias.”66 Add to this the occasional carriage of wood fromthe forest, corn to market, millstones from the town, as well as messen-ger service, &c. &c., and indeed the whole variety of services whichwere obligatory to the German peasant serfs of the Middle Ages. Be-sides these services, they were liable to numerous dues in kind andmoney taxes, and laudemia (heriots, “dat in obitu melius catallum”),67

which appear under different names, the signification of which is oftena veritable stumblingblock to the antiquary and linguist. But in all thesecases the amount of the service and dues was in proportion to the sizeof the “tenementa,” so that two “dimidii villani” (of whom each hadonly half a virgata) were not bound to furnish more service than one“plenus villanus” on the same manor who was possessed of a whole“virgata.”

The third class of dwellers on the manor, who are always men-tioned in the last place in the Land registers, are the cotarii, cotsetlae,bordarii,68 which names imply, possessor of a small house (in low Ger-man kotten, katen, kate), with a courtyard attached to it, and some-times a small plot of ground. Their small holdings are very exactlygiven, especially in the second part of the Hundred Rolls. Their home-stead was sometimes called “messagium,” sometimes “cotagium,” or“toft”; and generally they had a courtyard (“curtillum”), or a smallinclosed or fenced piece of ground, in or near the village, called “croft,”69

from a few rods to several acres in size; and not seldom also, someacres of land in the open fields (in campis). Their land property wassometimes designated “cotland.”70 This class also had to perform obliga-

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tory service, but, on account of the insignificance of their possessions,of a much lighter character than that of the “villani.” Above all, teamservice naturally did not fall to the share of these cottagers; except atharvest time they gave at most one day per week manual labour; some-times they assisted in mowing hay and at wheat harvest, as also atsheep-shearing, and on other extraordinary occasions on the farm. Withregard to the right of leaving the estate, or of giving their daughters inmarriage, they laboured under the same restrictions as the “villani”;71

and if such emblems of serfdom were not so regularly laid down as forthe “villani,” we presume the reason to have been, that this was consid-ered as a matter of course, with these, the lowest class of tenants. Thesetokens of servitude were however expressly laid down for the cotarii,e.g., “Rot. Hund.” II. pp. 654, 661, 662, 663, 664, and elsewhere.

The monendayesmen, in Huntingdonshire, appear to have been apeculiar kind of “cotarii,” of whom some were in possession of amonendayesmencroft, others of “una quart. terrae,” and who cultivatedtheir land with the manorial plough. To the same class belong the “te-nentes pretencarii” in the same county, and many other merely locallyoccurring designations, which is of as little importance to our presentpurpose as the names of the preceding class.

Manors constituted and populated after this manner formed eachfor itself, an agricultural unity, which sometimes, but by no means al-ways, coincided with the “villata” (the township).

In the first place the peasant serfs of every manor were associ-ated in a perfectly intimate fellowship among themselves; their plotswere so small that they were never sufficient for separate, independentmanagement. By far the most important agricultural labour of that pe-riod was ploughing, and a peasant very rarely undertook this for him-self alone with his own team and plough. The team of a plough con-sisted then, as a rule, of not less than eight draught cattle; and suchteams were in use even at the end of the preceding century. ArthurYoung writes of a place in Sussex, that eight oxen and one horse werethere yoked to one plough; of another place, “that they ploughed witheight oxen;” and in some parts of England as many as a dozen oxenwere used with one plough, so that two or three drivers were neces-sary.72 He remarks on the exceedingly bad fodder, which very much


diminished the labour-power of the draught cattle, especially duringthe winter ploughing. Many landlords ploughed during the whole win-ter on straw-feeding alone, which must have been very general on ac-count of the scanty supply of fodder in mediaeval husbandry. The samecustoms are reported to have prevailed in Scotland. Commonly there,even in the middle of the preceding century, they ploughed with a teamof four oxen and two horses, and in many districts with eight, ten, ortwelve oxen.73 That this custom was very ancient, follows from thepreviously mentioned old divisions of the plowlands (carucata) in eightbovatae (ox-gangs), and the sources of our period also give expressevidences of it. The Liber Niger of Peterborough Abbey always givesthe number of draught cattle and ploughs that are on the manor farm,and we see throughout that from six to eight oxen are reckoned for oneteam. In the Domesday of St. Paul’s74 are not less frequently mentioned,“carucae octo or decem capitum;” but there, indeed, for the most partthe teams are mixed, so that each team consists of six oxen and fourhorses; or four oxen and four horses. As so many cattle could not bekept on every small peasant’s holding, the possessors yoked theirdraught cattle together in a common team, either when they renderedmanorial service or cultivated their own arable land. And thus, in theHundred Rolls, when the plough labour of a villanus is reckoned, theaddition is often made, “sicut sociatur,” e.g., Hundred Rolls II. 600,601, 603; “arabit unam seylionem sicut sociatur”; or, still clearer, II.631, “arabit—si propriam habet carucam, si non, cum alio vel aliissicut sociatur”; or, II. 645, “duo villani tenent inter se unam carucam,arabunt cum caruca sua unam seylionem.” This mutual participation infurnishing draught cattle for the yoke appears to have extended to the“libere tenentes,” thus at II. 485, of the 16 “liberi socmen” at Swaphamin Cambridgeshire — “et duo invenient unam carectam ad bladumtrahendum—item si duo vel tres vel quatuor unam carucam conjunxerintsemel ad semen hiemale et semel ad semen quadragesimale Prioremadjuvabunt ad arandum — Et si quis eorum sedecim unum equum ha-buit et non conjunxit per illos dies ad trahendum, &c.”; or in Domesdayof St. Paul’s, page 86, “omnes tenentes ejusdem villatae debent quatervenire p. annum ad pastum Domini ad precarias carucarum, illi scil.qui carucas habent per se vel junctas cum aliis.” Thus are to be ex-

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plained many statements in Domesday, in which the “carucae hominum”are given, and in which a plough-team was always given to several“villani” and “socmanni.” But as in Domesday “carucata” (the ploughland) and “caruca” (the plough) are designated by the same abbrevia-tion, we can seldom know for certain whether the question is of theextent of the arable land, or of the number of ploughs actually forth-coming. The Land register of the Abbey of Peterborough is clearer, asthe amount of the arable land of the peasant proprietors, as well as thenumber of their plough-teams, are laid down. In a village, Kateringese.g., there are 40 “villani,” each has a “virgata75 terrae,” and amongthem 22 “carucas”; further, in Pilesgete, 8 “villani,” who possess to-gether 1 “hida” and 1 “virgata” and 2 “carucas”; 44 “sochemanni” whohave 8 “carucas”; in Alwaltona, 7 “pleni villani” and 12 “dimidiivillani,” who possess 18 “virgas feme” and 7 “carucas,” &c. Harrow-ing, also, appears sometimes to have been executed in common, al-though the draught requisite for a harrow could scarcely have beenbeyond the means even of a small peasant. We hear, e.g., of three “liberetenentes” (de conquestu), each of 16 acres, that they — “herciabuntconjunctim cum una hercia tempore quadragesimali, dum dictus Abbasseminabit avenam,” &c.76 It is not very apparent to whom each timethe property in these common teams and agricultural implements re-ally belonged, but it appears very probable that it was to all in com-mon; we learn even of a boat in common to the village (communebatillum de Neuton), with which “cotarii” were obliged to make cer-tain expeditions for the lord (Rot. Hund. II. 647). In the same manneras with ploughwork, there were other services which the tenant serfshad to perform on the manorial farms and lands, very often not foreach “tenementum,” but determined for all in common; e.g., Reg. Prior.Wig. 65, where it says, speaking of the collective peasantry, “invenientde communi vi. homines ad falcandum pratum;” and the compensa-tions that came to them were often not less in common (in communihabent), especially in mowing hay and in harvest. It is mentioned sev-eral times, that the serfs alternately (year by year) shall serve, the firsthalf of the peasants one year, the other half the next—(Rot. Hund. II.470, 476). Even this arrangement could scarcely have been possible, ifeach time the peasants who were free from manorial service had not


assisted the others in the cultivation of their land.The co-operative industry and ability of the “villani,” in spite of

the unfavourable conditions in which they were placed, reached such apoint that, in isolated cases, they farmed the whole of the “terradominica,” with all its appurtenances, of the manor on which they dwelt.Among the possessions of the Monastery of Worcester, this was foundto be the case on two manors; while in others the “villani” only farmedpart of the manor land.77 Such a contract with peasant serfs has else-where its analogy, e.g., in Mecklenburg, where at an earlier period thepeasant serfs even bought several bankrupt manors.

Besides this intimate association of the peasants with regard tohusbandry labour on these manors, there was also as a rule an inter-mixed state of the fields, and an obligation to cultivate the arable landand meadows by a regulated succession of crops, with a right to freecommon pasturage on the uncultivated parts of the property. There isno want of authentic documents to vouch for such a state of villagehusbandry in different parts of the country; but also the attempts of thelarge landed proprietors, and above all of possessors of manors, to with-draw their land from this agrarian community, were very apparent. Atthe time when these attempts were made, we obtain authentic informa-tion of the ruling custom, which otherwise would be presumed as amatter of course. Thus, e.g., Galfridus Bolle, of Dullingham, complainsconcerning “depastio” of his land by the greater part of the inhabitantsof Dullingham; they, however, “clamant habere communiam ibidemper totum annum quolibet tertio anno, et quolibet anno a festo S. Petriad Vincla (1 Aug.) usque ad festum Purificationis S. Marise” (2 Febr.);while the complainant seeks to dispossess them of the common pastur-age every year, from Mary’s purification to Mary’s birth, i.e., from the2nd Feb., o.s., to the 6th Sept., o.s., because he wished to cultivate thefallow. (Plac. c. Regis ap. Westm. 2 Ed. II. Cantabr. Rot. 77 in thePlacit. Abbrev. p. 306.) A similar case occurs of an endeavour to with-draw a glebe land from the common pasturage in the fallow year (32Edw. I. Nott. rot. 74 in the Placit. Abbrev. p. 251), in which the parsonbrings his complaint against thirty persons of a village on account of“depastura bladi sui”; and they make reply that on the land in question,“quod sunt tenentes domini ejusdem villae et quod debent ibi

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communicare quolibet tertio anno.” It is a peculiar pleading, that of theinhabitants of a village who have been complained of for “depasturabladi,” that they, on the land in question, “debent communicare quolibetsecundo anno a festo Nativitatis S. Johannis B. (24 June) usque adfestum Annunc.” (25 March). We might be tempted to consider this aspointing to a two-field husbandry; but the required pasture time doesnot tally, either with the fallow year (for there would be no space forcultivating the winter corn), or with the wheat year; for the harvest, onthe 24th June, could not be gathered by that time. Perhaps before, theland had only been used as grass land. In many cases the lords of themanor succeeded openly in withdrawing their demesne lands, eitherwholly or in part, from the community. Among the estates of the Prioryat Worcester there were several which came into this category, as thefollowing remarks show — e.g., p. 12a, “persona et liberi de Estumhabent communia in stipula (stubble)—de novo essarto tantum,remiserunt autem nobis in perpetuum communiam de vetere assarto.”In another maiierium, particular plots only were withdrawn from thecommon pasturage; “nullus habet commmiam in pastura de Kingestun,nec in prato de Hultun, nec in giardino” (p. 38a). And again, in another,the whole of the demesne lands were freed from common rights; “nullushabet communiam nobiscum in antique dominico, nec in bosco” (p.53a), and again, somewhat later: “habemus quandam terrain juxtabrueram78 et nullus in ea communicat.” There are some passages whichmay be interpreted as pointing to a withdrawal from the community inlands, as in the Rotuli Hund. II. 529: “Abbas tenet —in boscis, pratis,pasturis et terra arabili XIXX acr. in uno clauso;” and still more clearly,II. 67: “tenet tres carucatas terrae in dominico et unum boscum de unaleuca in cireuitu et hoc totum habet in separali per totum annum.” Alsothe expression in Reg. Wig. 87", “triginta acrae quolibet annoseminandae,” relates plainly to arable land that was not subject to com-pulsory cultivation for a succession of crops, and thus, neither to fal-low pasturage. Certainly, however, in the greater number of cases, thestate of community in use of the arable land, even for the great freelandowners, must have continued; even different manors remained to-gether in the same community, if they were situated in the same villata;e.g., l.c. p. 34b: “communa pastura cum Kekingwik et ipsi nobiscum in


wareto et stipula et pratis.” A similar community in pasturage, in twoseparate manors is reported, p. 10a. Fresh confirmations of this com-munity also occur, e.g., in an agreement (or contract), in which a cer-tain Ricardus le Joyce de Shennington transfers to one Johannes leSoc, houses and plots of land, and the said Johannes secures to Ricardus“communiam pasturae per omnes terras suas in Shennington, temporeaperto, et post fena et blada collecta exceptis le Inlaund, le Banecrofte,et terra de Stenelowe infra novas fossatas.” (Placit. Abbrev. p. 232.)

At this period also, the meadows appear to have been on a differ-ent footing with regard to private use and common pasturage, and there-fore these points are expressly mentioned in the Land registers far morefrequently than similar relations applying to arable land. The ordinaryrule was that the meadows should be for private use from the begin-ning of the growth of the grass to the end of the hay harvest; however,these limits were not always fixed in the same manner. We find that“prata pasture culturae” were in private use (separabilia), a Purific. S.Mariae (2 Feb.) usque ad fest. Johannes B. (24th June), Rotul. Hund.II. 618; or, “a Pascha usque ad fest. S. Johannis B.” (1. c. ii. 610); or, “afesto Purific. S. Mariae usque ad Gulam August!” (Aug. 1), 1. c. ii.626. An exceptionally short period of common pasturage is cited inRot. Hund. II. p. 616, “pratum separabile, quod vocatur Redmad exceptisa festo S. Michaelis usque ad festum S. Martini” (11th Nov.). Some-times during the fallow years of the arable land the adjoining meadowswere open the whole year as common pasture. We have cognisance ofan agreement in which a meadow is given back thus: “quando campusvillae contiguus praedicto prato excoletur, pratum illud falcabitur etquando campus ille remanebit warectatus, praedictum pratum erit com-mune” (Placit. Abbrev. p. 81). Thus, it is to be understood that when ameadow from its nature is not put to fallow, it shall lie “ad warectumquolibet tertio anno” (Rot. Hund. II. 610); and perhaps, also, when themeadows of the common pasturage lie open, “tempore aperto.”79 Thesecustoms also, which are sufficiently explained by the desire not to ex-haust the meadows by constant hay crops, had been exceptionally pre-served to later times on a manor described by Williams in theArchseologia. The above-mentioned lot meadows were mown for twoyears on that manor, and then used the third year as common pasturage

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(1. c. 275). An arrangement of this kind naturally could have held goodwith regard to the meadows of which the particular plots were strictlyprivate, as well as to those on which the several plots were constantlyallotted for hay harvest.

We have not been able to find anything further relating to thiscustom and its extension during this period; however, it may easily besurmised that the meadows which were designated as simple “pratacommunia,” were lot meadows of the above kind. Thus, there are inHuntingdonshire two meadows lying in a “mariscus communis, quseprata spectant ad omnes homines de Stangrund et Faresteved” (Rot.Hund. II. 646); also in a village in the county of Cambridge, the peas-ants were obliged to mow “pratum domini in communi prato” (1.c.485), &c. Of a more doubtful nature are the numerous complaints inthe same county, that this or that person “tenet unum pratum separabileet fuit commune”; or, that one, “cepit de communi quoddam pratum adquantitatem iii acrarum ad nocunientum totius villae” (1. c. p. 484);because here possibly the question is of separate meadows, that wereformed, not from the common meadows, but out of the common pas-ture land.

A general and permanent separation from the community in landat that period existed only for dwellings, farmyards, and gardens, forthe parks which were frequently attached to the manors, and for thesmall inclosures above mentioned, which were commonly designatedby the word “croft.”

But if we admit that the ruling system of this time, for arable landand meadows, was one of constraint in cultivation with a communityin fallow and stubble pasturage, we may conclude, with a moderatedegree of certainty, that there was an intermixed state of the fields. Thecompulsory cultivation would have led to an intolerable state of thingsif each holding, at least, had not had a share in each of the differentlycultivated portions of the village acreage; and if any one could havebeen subjected to have the whole of his arable land thrown into thefallow and common pasturage in one year. But we have authentic proofsenough of the intermixed state, not only of the tenant land, but also ofthe demesne, which, at least in many cases, was mixed up with that ofthe tenant. Thus, e.g., William Hale Hale imparts to us, in the notes to


the “Articuli visitationis maneriorum S. Pauli,” the description of the“terra dominica” of a manor in Nastock (Essex) in the year 1291,80

which commences “sunt etiam in dicto manerio tres seysones terraarabilis,” viz.:—

Ad unam seysonam. Then follow twelve different parcels of un-equal size in different fields (campi). Summa CXLII acres 1 rod.

Ad aliam seysonam. Ten parcels in different fields, Summa CLIIIacr. dim.

Ad tertiam seysonam. Five parcels in different places. SummaCXL acr. dim. 1 rod.

The same author also gives an account of perfectly similar inven-tories of the demesne lands of the manors belonging to the Prior of Ely,without giving their date, which were mixed up with, and used withthose of the tenants in a community of three-field husbandry. InSwaffham (probably the Swapham Prioris of the Rot. Hund. II. 484),in Cambridgeshire, the three “culturae” of the “terra dominica” were71, 94, and 93 acres in extent. The first “cultura” of 71 acres consistedof 24 fields, and according to the detail of the fields of each “cultura,”the description always included the note: “memorandum, quod totapraedicta terra jacebit quolibet anno tertio in communi cum warectis.”81

To what extent the parcelling at that time went in England isshown, not only by many exchange and purchase agreements in Maddox“Formulare Anglicanum” (especially Nos. CCLVIIL, CCLXVIL,CCLXX.), where plots of ground of a few acres, consisting of severalseparate parcels, are described; but also perhaps, in a still higher de-gree in a passage in the Domesday of St. Paul’s, p. 11, where those whowere intrusted with the arrangement of the Land registers, declare “tresacrae inveniri non possunt.” The Liber Niger of Hexham Priory82 which,however, had its origin in the latter end of the Middle Ages, recordsfurther an enormous scattering of the demesne and tenant’s land. Thedemesne lands, e.g., of a village (de Haghe), amounting altogether to189½ acres, lie in 68 fields, or rather “gewannen”;83 but in very manyfields they were not joined together so as to make one plot, but werebroken up again into several disconnected pieces. Thus, in this case, itruns: “et in campo X in diversis locis II acrae” (p. 48). In Kirkve, in thecounty of York, a “bovata” consisted of 12 acres of 30 plots of arable

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land, and three parcels of meadows, each of 1 rod (p. 90). Of the de-mesne lands of a manor at Sulton, it is expressly stated that two-thirdsof the same “jacent discontinue per diversas partes inter terras tenentiumnon separalia.” (p. 72).

With regard to the succession of crops which was compulsory inthe cultivation of this arable land, Fleta expressly reports that in histime, i.e., in the reign of Edward I, there were two systems, that of thetwo and that of the three-field husbandry. On one plough land, he says,were reckoned sometimes 160 and sometimes 180 acres— “noviesviginti acrae faciunt carucatam eo quod LX in hieme, LX inquadragesima et LX in aestate pro warecto debent exarari, de terrisvero bipartitis debent ad carucam octies viginti acrae computari, utmedietas pro warecto habeatur et medietas alia in hieme et quadragesimaseminetur” (II. c. 72). Of these two systems Rogers84 holds that thelast, or two-field husbandry, was the prevailing one in the Middle Ages,without giving any grounds for his conclusion; we, however, must con-fess that, on the contrary, up to the present time, we have only foundtrustworthy and authentic proofs of a three-field husbandry, and thesereferred to the most different parts of middle and eastern England.

We have already cited some places in which, without any doubt,the three-field husbandry is alluded to, viz., in two places in thePlacitorum Abbrev. p. 300 (Cambridgeshire), p. 251 (Nottinghamshire);and further, Bot. Hundred II. 610 (Huntingdonshire), as well as thedescriptions of Nastock in Essex, and Swaffham in Cambridgeshire.Out of the plethora of evidence for this husbandry system, we will nowmake a selection which will not only prove the great extension of thesame in England, but also, we believe, that in the opinions of manywriters of the time, the three-field husbandry was the rule then as amatter of course. Among other testimony in connection with this three-field husbandry system, a lease of the year 1249 is extremely interest-ing; it is to be found in Maddox “Formulare Anglicanum,” No.CCXXVVII. A certain Wilhelmus de B. leases to the Abbot and Con-vent of Bordesley (according to Dugdale Monast. Anglo., situated inthe county of Worcester) “totam terram de dominico (arable land and ameadow) ad decem croppos, ita quod dicti Abbas et Conventus integrepercipient dictos decem croppos de terra arabili et chevesces (?) quas


receperunt ad warectum et quolibet anno interim vesturam dicti prati.Bro his vero decem croppis percepi ego dictas Wilhelmus—quinquaginta duos solidos et sex denarios, insuper pro prato meo, quodremanebit dictis monachis in defensa usque ad perceptionem quindecimvesturarum, viginti duos,” &c. Thus it was taken, as a matter of course,that in fifteen years, from arable land in which the meadows yieldedcrops fifteen times, ten harvests only could he gathered. In like man-ner, this system of husbandry was the basis of different leases on theManors of St. Paul’s Church, published by William Hale Hale, in theAppendix to Domesday of St. Paul’s. The contract concerningKeneswurda, in Hertfordshire, of the year 1152, says the lessee mustrefund “totum bladurn LXV acrarum de hiemali blado seminatarum etsimiliter totum bladuni LXX acrarum de vernali blado seminatarum etquater XX acros warectatos.” Also, a lease of the year 1232, in whichthe property of a manor at Hexham-on-Tyne (in the extreme north ofthe country) is leased by the Archbishop of York to the Monastery ofHexham for fifteen years, presupposes a three-field husbandry. Theagreement is concluded to Whitsuntide, and in it is mentioned “that ofthe arable land of the property, 78 acres in all, in different fields weresown with oats, 51½ acres with wheat and rye, 50 acres were fallow”(or, more correctly still, to be broken up, “terra wareccanda”85). Afterfifteen years the land must be sown in a precisely similar manner, andgiven back with the same fallow land. To be sure, here, the springcrops preponderated far over the winter crops and fallow, but the origi-nally equal division of a landed property into the three-fields was fre-quently cancelled by subsequent change of possession, and then, as wepresume on other evidence, sometimes a portion of the fields in thethree-field husbandry, which properly should have been cultivated withwinter crops, was, exceptionally however, sown with summer cropsand vice versa. In the Rot. Hund., as a rule, the arable land of the prop-erties is not particularly described according to situation or division;still we find clear mention of the three-field husbandry, as in the caseof the demesne lands of a manor in Cambridgeshire (Vol. II. p. 462): “t.in dominico VIxx acras et XIII acras terra; quae jaceut in tribus campiset tertia pars jacet in warecta.” More frequently in this and other landregisters, in which the peasant services are laid down, the prevalence

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of the husbandry system in question, is to be concluded from the ploughwork being divided into three equal parts: “inhieme,”86 “inquadragesima,” and “in aestate”; or, “ad semen hiemale,” or“hivernagium, ad semen quadragesimale”; or, “ad trimesium” and “adwarectum”;87 thus, in the Rotuli Hundred II, pp. 440 and 441, 461, inCambridgeshire, 605 (debet arare ad tres seysiones), 659, 661 (arabitcum caruca sua per quatuor dies tempore hiemali et per quatuor diestempore quadragesimali et per quatuor dies tempore aestivali) inHuntingdonshire, but also on the borders of Wales, on the properties ofthe Priory of Worcester, e.g., Reg. Prior. Wig. p. 9b: “tres araturae quatuorcarucarum tribus temporibus anni, vid. quatuor ad hibernagium, quatuorad trimesium, quatuor ad warectum: p. 14b, quaelibet virgata arabit adhybernagium tramesium et warectum per unum diem, p. 19b: debet—terram arare sicut sibi arat scil. semel ad yvernagium, et ad tramesiumet ad warectum, p. 61b: faciet tres aruras unam ad hyvernagium, unamad tramesium, et unam ad warectum.” Just as often, it is true, theploughwork occurs, only divided into two seasons, winter sowing andsummer sowing; and sometimes also the obligation of the peasants toplough during the whole year, with the exception of harvest time, orfrom Michaelmas to Midsummer, was expressed. From these regula-tions no conclusion concerning any particular fixed system, either oftwo or three-field husbandry, can be arrived at. In the first very fre-quently occurring case, when only a double ploughing by the peasantsis mentioned, we must assume either that at the time in which the ser-vices of the peasants were fixed, the fallow was only once ploughedfor autumnal crops, or that the fallow ploughing was done exclusivelywith the manorial ploughs, and that the peasant services (carucae adjuta-trices) could be dispensed with, because the time for fallow cultivationwas much less limited than that for seed ploughing. The fallow couldbe prepared in the course of the summer at any convenient time fromthe end of the summer sowing till late into the summer. It appears thatpeasants ploughed on the fallow (warectare) from Hokeday (secondTuesday after Easter) till Midsummer (Rot. Hund. II. 461), and to VinclaPetri (Domesday of St. Paul’s, p. 34).88

But however this may be, in opposition to these frequent andundoubted references to a three-field husbandry, we have only met with


one indication, which it is highly probable may relate to a two-fieldhusbandry, and that is in the “Regist. Prior. Wigorn.” which has al-ready been referred to several times. Of the demesne land of a manerium(Herfortun), it is there remarked: “in dominico—XII virgatae terraeunde quaelibet tenet in quolibet campo X acras,” and the tenants hadtheir lands likewise (the virgatae in villenagio) divided into two fieldsof nearly equal size (pp. 60, 62). Certainly it is possible to refer thisequal division to two parts of the whole acreage, on which differentsystems of husbandry existed; but the circumstance that equal, or nearlyequal, portions belonged to each possession in both fields, leads ratherto a conclusion of a two-field husbandry. Hence a two-field husbandryexisted here and there exceptionally, which cannot be a matter of anydoubt, as we have already seen from the words of Fleta which havebeen given above; but if we weigh the fact, that in the sources lyingbefore us, we have only found one indication of this field system inopposition to the very general mention of a three-field husbandry, aswell as, that nearly always in more modern times, where remains of theold village husbandry still existed, the three-field husbandry was therule; we may then assume—as long as the assertion of the most recenthistorian of English agriculture is unsupported by any proofs — thatthree-field husbandry, as was also the case in the greatest part of Ger-many and France, and also in eastern and midland England from theNorth Sea to the borders of Wales, though indeed not the only one, wasstill decidedly the prevailing system.

A permanent pasturage necessarily belongs to a three-field hus-bandry, and it appears that such was seldom wanting altogether in En-gland. It is remarked of some properties of St. Paul’s Church: “et nonest ibi pastura nisi cum quiescit dominicum per wainagium,”89 and,“non est ibi pastura, nisi quando terrae dominicae quiescunt alternatimincultae” (Domesday of St. Paul’s, pp. 59, 69).90 But this were plainlyan exceptional condition, and there can be no doubt that generally agreat part of the country lay in an uncultivated state, and, if we exceptfor cutting wood, was principally used as pasture. And this is also cer-tain, that the tenants of the manor used this pasture in common. Notseldom also “pasturae separabiles,” often of the smallest extent, werementioned with the “terra dominica”; but “several” wood or pasture

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lands scarcely ever occur when the possessions of the tenants are al-luded to. In England, however, the rights of property and use in thecommon pasturage assumed a particular form, and this peculiarity hasnot been without its influence on the later agrarian development of thecountry. The lords of the manor appear also as possessors of the landswhich were in common use and unpartitioned, the right of all otherpossessors of lands to the common lands was merely that of use on theproperty of another. In some cases this form of right may have had itsorigin from the manors having been originally formed on land that hadnever before been cultivated as separate farm properties, apart fromany agrarian community; e.g., in many of the extensive grants of landto temporal or spiritual nobles which are reported in the Anglo-Saxonrecords. The lord of the manor was then originally in fact the propri-etor of the whole territory which was conceded to him, and he grantedto his “subtenentes” particular portions for separate use, together withthe necessary right of pasturage on the unpartitioned land which re-mained in his possession. But the very same form of right without doubtvery frequently arose from a lord holding from the crown either imme-diately or as mesne lord a whole district in fief, and thus becoming asuperior proprietor of the whole common village district (tenetmanerium et villam). Several manors might then be in the same “villa”or “villata,” but one of them was the capital manor, and its possessorthe superior lord, from whom the others held in fief, and his propri-etorship of the whole extent of the acreage was only limited by theregulated rights of use which his tenants possessed. So also with thecommon pasture, to which the tenants had only a right of use, while thelord of the manor was also lord of the soil in waste of the manor. Hencein all juridical writings concerning rights of common, the rights of thecommoners to common pasture and wood were considered as rights91

of use on a property belonging to another. The rights of common, ap-pendant, appurtenant, and in gross, as distinguished in the legal manu-als, are nothing more than different kinds of pasture right on the soil ofanother, and not different forms of property in copartnership. Butwhether at the period of which we are treating all pasture land in En-gland was exclusively manorial pasture, or whether there existed ratherproper common pastures, the property of the commoners, appears to us


to be doubtful. In more modern times real common pastures were notwanting in England, in relation to which the rights of the lord of themanor as lord of the soil were not opposed to the pasture rights of thecommoners, but which were the common property of many tenants; itremains a question, however, whether in these cases the right of prop-erty of the lord of the manor was not set aside at a later time. At least,the opinion of the most experienced witness concerning this subjectwho was examined before the Inclosure Committee tended towardsthis view.92 But if, e.g., in the “Rotul. Hundred,” II. p. 534, it is re-corded of a “villata” in Cambridgeshire, “ tota villata de Yamelinghabet de pastura communi cum bruera XIIXX acras,” and in this “villata”there were different “feoda” wnose possessors were the under vassals(subtenentes) of different crown vassals (tenentes in capite), none ofwhich are described as “capitale manerium,” then it is not apparentwho could have been lord of the manor on this “pastura communis,”and we must assume that the common pasture must have belongedactually to the villata, i.e., either to the possessors of the different“feoda,” or to all the libere tenentes. Similar relations, however, occurfrequently in the Rotuli Hundred.93 Sometimes it was mentioned that apasture or a heath with several villages or manors which were not aunited “villata,” were in common, l.c. II. 602, 646; and comparativelyfrequent were entries of similar large communities with regard to for-ests, l.c. II. 450, 602, 605. There, also, no precise lord of the manor canbe traced, but we must rather seek perhaps in these large associationsthe last remains of larger district communities (Markgenossenschaften).

With regard to the relation of the different kinds of pasture rightsto the manorial pasture, which at any rate prevailed generally, we can-not find anything in our mediaeval sources to add to the above-men-tioned distinctions of the same, as they are to be found in all legalmanuals. The most widespread among these rights appears to have beenthe so-called “common appendant,” that is, those rights of pasturagewhich flowed from the arable land of the manor, and which had theirorigin in the times before the law “quia emptores” by which the pos-sessor could turn out a certain number of cattle to graze according tothe extent of his arable land. The herds of cattle which those who pos-sessed this right could turn out, were designated in ancient times as

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“cattle levant,” and “cattle couchant,” on the arable land to which therights belonged. These words “levant” and “couchant” are howeverexplained by the courts of law of different periods in a different man-ner. In the olden times they were meant to express the cattle whichwere necessary to plough and “compester,” or, merely to till the arableland; in more modern times as the nature of the cultivation of the ar-able land was continually changing,94 the courts decided that a right ofpasture of “common appendant,” gave a right to turn upon the com-mon as many com-monable cattle, as the land, to which the appendantright is attached would maintain by its produce through the winter. Asmany cattle as the land can maintain during the winter are said to belevant and couchant on the land. This is the German “Ueberwinterungg-mass-stab,” according to which common pastures in Germany are atpresent divided, if there are no particular rights to the contrary.

The second kind of pasturage right— “common appurtenant,” isattached likewise to certain lands, but it rests, according to its origin,not on common law, or on the time-out-of-mind homogeneity of arableland and pasturage rights on a manor, but either on an express grantfrom the owner of the land, or on a right of prescription in place of thegrant. Thus the right can attach to pieces of land which are not in-cluded in the manor to which the pasture belongs, and above all it isonly limited in its extent besides, by the capacity of the pasturage tonourish the cattle, by the nature of the grant, or the corresponding pre-scriptive right. In case however of there being no determined numberor kind of cattle to be turned out, laid down, then the limit for cattlelevant and couchant on lands to which the right appertained applied tothe common appurtenant. This kind of pasturage right frequently oc-curred, and it especially applied practically to mast and pasturage rightsfor swine and sheep, as well as a right of pasturage for a strictly limitednumber of cattle. Many landlords appear already at that time to haveconsidered it desirable that such a limit should be put to the number ofthe cattle to be turned out. The instructions with regard to the visitationand surveys of the manors prescribe openly in this sense, that by the“pastura forinseca, quae est communis,” the number of the cattle whichthe landlord and tenants may turn out must be regulated. The smallesteconomical importance among the different pasturage rights attaches,


according to their nature, to the commons “in gross”; that is, commonrights which do not attach to ground and soil, but which exist withoutany regard to the property in the land.

The lord of the manor very often received especial taxes fromthose who had the right of using the common pasturage; for instance,the serfs, besides their other services, gave also as a rule especial rentsfor pasturage, mast, and wood, (“herbagium,” “lessilver” for the pas-turage, for the use of the forests “wode-silver,” for swine-mast“pannagium,” for the use of dry wood “pro mortuo bosco”), &c. &c.

Further, the lord of the manor, as lord of the soil, had the right toinclose for his particular use a portion of the common pasture in so faras the pasture rights of the commoners were not damaged thereby. Thisright, called the right of approver,95 seems for some time to have beendoubtful, but it was made valid and determined expressly by two laws,Statute of Merton, c. 4 (20 Henry III. 1235–36, p. Ch.), and Statute ofWestminster, 2 c. 46 (13 Edward I. 1285, p. Chr.) The first of theselaws makes mention that many large landed proprietors who have madeover in fief small holdings on their manors to knights and other smallfreeholders cannot make use of their waste lands and forests, inas-much as they had let to their vassals the appurtenant pasturage rights,together with the land plots (cum ipsi feoffati habeant sufficientempasturam quantum pertinet ad tenementa sua). On this account it wasdecided, that if the “tenentes” should complain of the withdrawal ofthis right of pasturage, and if upon a judicial inquiry it should appearthat they had as much pasture, “quantum sufficit ad tenementa sua cumlibero ingressu et egressu,” that the complaint should be dismissed.96

This law therefore established the right of approver only as against theprotest of the proper tenants of the manor; and Bracton for this reasonexpressly maintains that a lord of the manor has no right to make anyencroachment on the common pasture against the protest of the com-moners who were not his tenentes. But the second law above-men-tioned places the protest of strange commoners on the same footing asthat of the vassals. Both classes then of commoners had only the rightto oppose the encroachments of the lords of the manor on the commonpasturage in case the pasture sufficient for their tenements was invaded,or in case they claimed rights, not according to common law, but on the

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grounds of an especial grant of right of pasture; then they must showthat this especial right had been infringed. Every complaint, however,of the encroachment on pasture rights “shall be dismissed, when suchshall have been caused on the common pasture by the building of awindmill, a sheep or cattle shed, or the necessary enlargement of themanorial property.” In both these laws the question only is concerningthe complaint of the “libere tenentes,” the “villani” are not mentionedat all. We may therefore feel satisfied that with regard to them the lordof the manor was quite unfettered as to his encroachments on the com-mon pasture.

There can be no question that this right of taking into culture partof the common pasture in the Middle Ages, from the originally largeextent of the pasture land, must have been of great value. Frequent usewas made of this right, and apparently the gradual disappearance ofthe surplus of the waste lands in consequence of their progressive oc-cupation and use by the lords of the manor first caused these rights tobe taken under legislative regulation. The “Placita curiae regis” bringsto our knowledge lawsuits founded on these laws immediately aftertheir promulgation, between lords of the manor and their tenants, andthe second volume of the Hundred Rolls contains numerous complaintsto the juries appointed to report concerning the illegal encroachmentson the common rights. But the land taken from the common pasturewas not always cultivated, but sometimes used as the private manorialpasture or park.97 A park that was inclosed from the common pastureby the lord of the manor is mentioned in the Rot. Hund. II. p. 605, andPlacit. Abbrev. § 223, where the complaints of the commoners are re-jected, “quod habent sufficientem communiam extra prasdictumclausum.” Still more frequent are the citations of a “pastura separabilis,”with the addition: “quae quondam fuit communis,” or, “quae solebatesse communis totius villas” (II. 484, 650).

As we may here remark by anticipation, this general position ofthe lord of the manor with regard to the common pasture in Englandgave him much less interest in the preservation of his tenants than inplaces where such a manorial right to the ground and soil of the com-mon pasture did not exist. When the common Mark was the commonproperty of all the usufructuaries, and all households had their share in


the right of use of it, as was the case, according to Thudichum, in manyparts of Germany, this was a motive for the lords of the manor not toget rid of them. In England, however, the right of property which thelords of the manor possessed in pasture and forest was so much themore valuable the less it was opposed by the rights of use of the com-moners.

The greater the importance to which cattle-breeding attained inthe course of the agricultural development, the more these conditionsweighed against the small landed proprietors. To this may be addedthat the cattle-breeding of the tenants was still subjected to many op-pressive restrictions in favour of the lord of the manor. Above all, villeinswere, as it appears, universally bound to obtain the permission of thelord of the manor if they wished to sell cattle to persons not belongingto the manor, and for this permission they were obliged to pay a tax.Perhaps these restrictions arose from the indispensable necessity forthe draught cattle of the tenants in the cultivation of the manor lands.That this view is correct, appears probable to us, from passages whichoccur occasionally in which it is expressly stated that the peasant mightfreely sell his ox or young steer, if it had not been worked; but whenonce put in the team he could not alienate it without the consent of thelord of the manor.98

Still more important than these restrictions on the free sale ofcattle was the so-called “jus faldae” (right of fold of the lord of themanor); that is, the right to take a flock of sheep and to pen them uponhis own fields for the purpose of manuring them.99 This right obligedthe vassals to pen their sheep on the manorial pasture, so that the wholefoldage might go to the benefit of the manorial fields.100 Only some ofthe larger free possessors had sometimes, besides the lord of the manor,possessed the same rights; it is then expressed in the Land registers,“tenet cum libertate faldae,” or “unius faldae,” or “dimidiae faldae.” Ina series of passages we find the duration of this duty of the vassalsgiven, e.g., “item debent habere bidentes suos in falda domini a diehokesday101 (the second Tuesday after Easter) usque ad festum S. Mar-tini” (Rot. Hund. II. 458, 459), or, “et oves erunt in falda domini abhokesdav usque ad fest. S. Martini” (II. 539), or, “et omnes isti (scil.libere tenentes) ponent faldam suam singulis annis super terram

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dominicam ab hokeday usque ad vincla”102 (Domesday of St. Paul’s, p.105). As may be imagined, great importance was attached to this “jusfaldae,” and complaints were frequently heard that such a one “levavitinjuste faldam.” In the pure three-field husbandry, with free range ofpasture for cattle on the permanent pastures, the production of stallmanure was very scanty, and the transport and spreading of it on thearable land very expensive as compared with the price of the produce;thus the penning of sheep on the bare fallow was the more valuable.The fact that the whole of the benefit was to the “terra domini” mustcertainly have proved disadvantageous to the peasant husbandry. How-ever, there was so far a compensation in that the draught cattle of thepeasants were proportionately more numerous than those of the manor,because, indeed, the manor lands for the most part were cultivated withthe teams of the peasants. Hence, without doubt, as much less of theproduce of the peasants’ land was sold than of that of the manor farms,much more was employed for the nourishment of the labourer and thedraught cattle, and on this account the peasants could more easily dis-pense with sheep-penning in their husbandry.

But in the latter centuries of the Middle Ages a very importantchange entered into this, upon the whole, well-constituted agrariansystem, which thus far we have endeavoured to describe.

A system of money payments, as opposed to the mediaeval barterin kind, became established in England at a much earlier period, andfar more extensively, than in the great inland countries of the Europeancontinent. The principal reason of this was the same which likewise inclassical antiquity on the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea had given animpulse to a proportionately active traffic, and caused the spread ofthat system of economy, viz. the superior communication by sea andits inlets, which ran deep into the land, and on the many slowly-flow-ing rivers, which were on that account more easily navigable. Noinacessible mountains, no extensive tracts of land, separated the dif-ferent parts of England from one another, or from the emporiums ofexternal trade on the sea coast. Added to this, the power of the Statewas greater since the Norman Conquest than in continental countries,and the more efficient general police system for preserving the publicpeace afforded a security for trading which at that time was only ex-


ceptional on the continent; and finally, the freedom of the inland tradewas not disturbed by duties, king’s staple, and other impediments of asimilar nature, as in Germany and elsewhere. Hence it is easy to con-ceive that early in the Middle Ages the natural economical unity of themanor and community of villages had already begun to be dissolved.

In the first place a change was worked in the personal labourservices of the vassals, on which, as we have seen, the original cultiva-tion of the manor lands depended, by converting them into a fixedmoney rent. In the thirteenth century we already find adaerations103 onthe properties of the monastery of Worcester and St. Paul’s Churchpartially carried out. In the Land register of the first are cited “virgataein villenagio,” and still more frequently “cotarii,” who merely paid amoney rent; in very many registers there is a statement, side by side, ofdues, as to how they shall be paid, in work, dues in kind, or “laudemiae,”and on the other side of the money rent which the peasant proprietorhad to pay instead of those services, e.g., 103b, “in hoc manerio suntviii. virgatae servilis conditionis, quarum quaelibet si censat, dabit adquemlibet trium terminorum xii. d. pro omni servitio, ut dicunt.” Inother places a distinction is made: “virgata ad censum posita—adoperationem,” e.g., 69a, 71b, 86b; or, “si esset ad firmam — adoperationem,” e.g., 43b, 51b. Also in the first case, when the place was“ad censum,” or, “ad firmam,” the possessor often had some work toperform, particularly in harvesting, but very much less than when thehides stood merely on the footing of “ad operationem.” So also a dis-tinction was made between the “novae” and the “antiquae consuetudinesvillanorum” (p. 102ab), where the “novae” included less work and largermoney dues. Also in the Rotuli Hundred are to be found clear traces ofthe gradual change of service into rent, e.g., II. 409, 410, and in otherplaces: “reddit pro operibus,.. s. ... d. ad voluntatem domini.” Mani-festly these valuations for services (adaeratio) could only hold good bythe mutual consent of those who paid and those who claimed the ser-vices, and the addition “ad voluntatem domini,” which is to be foundalso in the Land registers of Worcester, shows that the lord of the soilexpressly reserved to himself the right to return to the personal ser-vices. However, as it generally happens under such circumstances, thenew rent system gradually took root, and a onesided return to the old

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condition—which besides as a rule with the progressing money pay-ments, would have been against the interest of both parties — was feltto be unequitable and indeed unjust. Rogers, it is true, conjectures thatthe scarcity of labour which arose in consequence of the great plague,and the high rate of daily wages, led the lords of the manor to attemptto compel the return to the old services, and that on account of this theinsurrection in the year 1381 arose. It does not appear that these con-jectures rest on any authentic foundation, but they are not wholly im-probable. The prices which were fixed in this valuation of services(adaeratio) were generally very low, and the depopulation after theplague, as Rogers proves, caused a considerable rise in the rate of dailywages. The interest which the lord of the manor had in making such anattempt was hence very apparent, but in any case these attempts wereattended with no permanent result. Occasionally agricultural servicesof vassals in England were preserved till the sixteenth century; for achange of this kind which did not rest upon a general law, as was thecase with regard to the valuations of services, could not be accom-plished without some exceptions. But, that agricultural services were,for the most part, converted into money rent at the end of the MiddleAges is a most remarkable sign of an advanced agricultural develop-ment. From this we see very clearly that the turning into cash of agri-cultural produce was easily accomplished, and enabled the large pro-prietors without difficulty to make considerable immediate outlay forlabour wages, and at the same time the peasants had learnt so far thevalue of their work and freedom, that they were led to prefer payingrent to rendering vassal service. Under favour of these conditions aregular free class of country day-labourers arose in England, who, al-though under strict police regulation (Statute of Labourers),104 wereyet on a much better footing than the serfs under the Norman Con-queror. It is highly probable that the cotarii, to whom we have abovealluded, were the progenitors of this class; their small possessions, andthe use of the common pasture for the grazing of one or several head ofcattle, gave them a security for their livelihood, which is wholly want-ing to the day-labourer of our time in England.

As, from this abolition of compulsory agricultural service, theposition of the peasant became a more favourable one, so also his per-


sonal status and his rights on the land and soil he cultivated becameimproved. Undoubtedly, the villanus, according to strict law, was stilla serf, and what he earned was for his lord; but yet his legal position, asdescribed by Littleton, was somewhat better than that laid down byBracton. He could seek redress independently, from the law againstall, except his own lord, and under certain circumstances he had even aright to sue him.105 But that which was of still greater importance thanthe progress of the serfs in their legal relations, was their rapidly de-creasing numbers in the last centuries of the Middle Ages. In a state ofeconomy, in which a change of personal service for a rent system isaccomplished by the mutual agreement of the contracting parties, per-sonal serfdom cannot long be maintained. Numerous records concern-ing manumission are possessed by us, and in an equal degree, evidenceof the general movement towards giving freedom to the serfs, is fur-nished by the repeated complaints to Parliament in the fourteenth cen-tury of the wholesale absconding of the “villani,” and, above all, of thesupport afforded to the fugitive peasants by the tribunals and the towns.They complained that it was scarcely possible to reclaim a “villanus”who had escaped to another county, or to London.106 The holding of thepeasant, whether it was settled at a money rent, or was still on theservice system, fell gradually more and more into the possession offreemen. It was no longer a matter of course that the peasant was aserf; and the idea of both was no longer expressed by the same expres-sion of “villanus.” Already, at the commencement of the fourteenthcentury, the “Statutum de Extentis Manerii” calls the old serfs“custumarii tenentes,” and the Land register of the monastery of Hexham(which we have referred to on several occasions) speaks of “husbands,”and “terrae husband”; just as in Mecklenburg the earlier serf peasantswere called “Hauswirthe,” and it was only exceptionally that these“husbands “were expressly noticed in their quality as “nativi domini.”

Even as the personal position of the peasant became graduallyaltered in the last centuries of the Middle Ages, so also the character ofhis tenure by “villenage” became converted into tenure by “copy of thecourt roll,” quite imperceptibly, and without the intervention of anylegislation. Eeeves mentions that in the law 42 Edward III. 35. tenantsper roll, “solonque le volunt le seigniour,” first occur, and that the same

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in 14 Henry IV. 34. are called copyholders.107 Littleton cites two, amongthe different kinds of tenure—tenure “per copy de court roll,” and ten-ure “per le verge,”—which are plainly derived from the old“villenagium.” Concerning the tenants “per le verge,” he says that inall essential points they are of the same kind as the copyholders (sonten tiel nature come tenants per le copy de court roll); he merely distin-guishes them according to the peculiar form of the transfer of thesepossessions (per virgam). According to him, both (as the copyholdersstill are) were tenants “a volunt le seignior” (at the will of the lord108);but he adds, “solonque le custome de mesme le manor” (and accordingto the custom of the manor); for, in the reign of Edward IV, the royalcourts had begun to establish the principle, that these tenants certainlywere tenants at the will of the lord of the manor, but that his will couldnot violate the custom of the manor on which the tenant was domi-ciled. Littleton (Instit. I. c. ix. p. 77) mentions two celebrated rulingsby Chief Justices (Edward IV.) Brian and Danby, which laid down thata custumary tenant who fulfilled his dues towards the lord of the manorhad an action for trespass against the lord who would deprive him ofhis possessions.

The same progress in agrarian history which thus changed theold condition of the peasantry, also paved the way to an early inaugu-ration of leases. A number of leases of great farms, in which the lesseeengages to pay a fixed annual rent in money, are specified by HaleHale from the archives of St. Paul’s in the twelfth century. The lessees,as it appears, were universally “canonici” of St. Paul’s, and the leaseswere for the lives of the contractors (quamdiu vixerit et inde firmambene reddiderit, or fideliter servierit). Somewhat later arise the seriesof leases for fixed rents, which Maddox specifies in the “FormulareAnglicanum,” and in the thirteenth century, the “villani” even takepossession of the whole of the “terra dominica, c. pertin,”109 on theestate of the monastery of Worcester on a lease at a fixed money rent.The degree in which a money economy was already developed in thispoint of view is shown by the quotations in the Land registers of theannual net revenue or rents of all the constituent parts of the manors.The “statutum de extentis manerii” simply orders that above all mustbe specified “quantum valet quaelibet acra per se per annum.” The


lease system gained further a great extension, as specified by Rogers,in the second half of the fourteenth century. The important rise in therate of labour-wages after the plague110 caused the system of self-farm-ing on the part of the lords of the manor, which up to that time was stillthe most prevalent, to be manifestly unprofitable; hired labour had be-come disproportionately dear, the old compulsory service having beenabolished. Nothing therefore remained but to lease the manor lands(Rogers, l. cit. 24). While further, the old leases are all so settled thatthe lessee takes over the inventory, which is enumerated and appraisedin the lease, and which he undertakes to restore, while, according toRogers, in the fifteenth century, on the property of the colleges (whosearchives he has made use of) the letting for short periods, and withoutany inventory, becomes more in vogue.111 But the unprofitableness ofself-farming, which led to leasing, probably also led to alienations oflands to small free-holders, who paid to the landlord a fixed annualground-rent (quit-rent).112 The increase of these freeholders, which isreported by many writers, in the later times of the Middle Ages, agreeswith this view.

Thus, into the fifteenth century, the agrarian revolution of theMiddle Ages was, on the whole, advantageous to the position of smalllanded proprietors; but at this time, the turning point was reached, andthe further development of the movement was, in all its degrees, asruinous to their interests as it had before been favourable.

Unfortunately, the agrarian records of the fourteenth and fifteenthcenturies, which must exist in England in great numbers, though muchdispersed, are not published equally with those of an earlier period,and we have not been in a position to make up for this important defi-ciency in our researches on the spot. Probably these would show thatalready in the fourteenth, and most certainly in the fifteenth century,the agitation sprung up which led to the great agrarian revolution un-der the rule of the Tudors.

Indications of this later revolution had already appeared on twooccasions; first, in the above described attempts of the larger landedproprietors to secede from the community in land; (the manner in whichthese secessions are mentioned in the records of the thirteenth centuryshows clearly that even at that time they were regarded as advanta-

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geous;) and, in the second place, in the joining of the smaller peasants’possessions to the larger ones. The lord of the manor had no longer aninterest (after the discontinuance of services) in the preservation of thesmall peasant; it was more convenient for him to draw the same amountof rents from a less number; it was advantageous ‘to emancipate themanorial pastures from pasturage rights, and certainly much easier toconvert large peasant properties into leasehold tenures than smallerones. William Hale Hale records that the archives of St. Paul’s Churchalready, in the fourteenth century, afford many examples of these junc-tions of the smaller villan tenements to a few large ones. (Reg. Prior.Wig. p. xix.) We first perceive, in the reign of Henry VII, the com-plaints, subsequently so numerous, of the decreasing numbers of thesmall landed proprietors, of the inclosures, and encroachments on thepasture. Two laws from the fourth year of that king’s reign (1488) gavepublic expression to the apprehension of the agrarian revolution whichwas then in progress. The first, cap. 16, particularly noticed by histori-ans, relates especially to the grass husbandry, and the depopulation ofthe Isle of Wight; the other, cap. 19, “an acte against pulling down oftounes,”113 is of a general character, and applies to the whole country.“Many houses and villages in the kingdom are deserted, the arableland belonging to them is inclosed and converted into pasturage, andidleness (the cause of all evil) is therefore generally prevalent. Where,formerly, two hundred men supported themselves by honest labour,are now to be seen only two or three shepherds.” In the first law, whichreferred to the Isle of Wight, on account of the especial necessity whichstill existed for a strong population as a defence against the French andother enemies, it was ordered that no one should have a leasehold ofmore than ten marks of yearly rent, and that no one should pull downfarm buildings, or suffer them to fall into decay. The second lays down,gene-rally, that all dwelling and farm buildings which within the lastthree years have been leased with twenty acres of land, shall be pre-served in as far as they are necessary for carrying on an arable hus-bandry. If this law should be violated, the next superior feudal lord,from whom the land in question was held on lease, shall take half therevenue of the land, the farm buildings of which have not been main-tained.


These complaints may be traced throughout the sixteenth centuryinto the beginning of the seventeenth, in the same manner, withoutinterruption.

We find them also, in the following reign, again most plainlyexpressed in the Statute Book, in the introduction to the laws by whichthe practice of encroachments was sought to be restrained. Thus, in 6Henry VIII. c. 5, and 7 Henry VIII. c. 1, where the mischief done is asplainly described, as in the just cited law of Henry VII: — “Pullingdowne and destruction of townes wythin thys realme and laying topasture landes which customably have been manured and occupyedwyth tyllage and husbandry.” When such houses,—it goes on to say,—have been destroyed since the first day of the present Parliament, theyare immediately to be rebuilt, and the inclosed lands restored to tillage.The penalty for violation of the law is the same as that of 4 Henry VII.c. 19, but with the aggravation that, if the next feudal lord should ne-glect to interpose, then the next superior, and finally, above all, theking, is empowered to enforce the penalty. These last rulings were,later (24 Henry VIII. c. 24), repeated, with the modification that theyapplied to all agricultural buildings which had fallen into decay since 4Henry VII, as well as to arable land which had been converted intopasture since the same period, and that generally for 30–50 acres ofarable land, a dwelling-house should be established in which a respect-able man could live.

Shortly after this followed the law 25 Henry VIII. c. 12, 13 (1533,4), which is especially directed against the encroachments with regardto sheep farming. “Different individuals in the last years had accumu-lated in their own hands a number of landed properties, a multitude ofcattle, and especially of sheep. Some of them possessed 24,000 sheep,others 10,000, &c. &c. Tillage is thereby displaced, the country de-populated, and the price of sheep and wool raised in an unheard-ofmanner (!). No one, therefore, shall possess more than 2,000 sheep,with the exception of laymen, who upon their own inheritance maypossess as many as they please; but they must not carry on sheep farm-ing on other properties.” Especially, it was dwelt upon, that in Suffolkand Norfolk the owners of foldcourses within the properties and man-ors over which their rights extended, redeemed or rented from all the

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other possessors of land, who had the right to pasture their sheep withthe manorial flock, their pasture right; and against this custom a prohi-bition was issued. About the middle of the sixteenth century the dis-content at this agrarian revolution arose to an immense height; the pam-phlets of the time are filled with it, and the most celebrated preacherszealously inveighed against it as the ruling sin of the times. This dis-content finally increased, till an open insurrection was the result.

Bishop Latimer,114 in his famous “Sermon of the Plough,” preachedbefore the Court of Edward VI on the 8th March, 1549, complains that,where formerly there were dwellings and inhabitants, now there is onlythe shepherd and his dog. He reproaches the nobles, who were amonghis audience, as “inclosers, graziers, and rent-raisers,” who made dow-erless slaves of the English yeomanry. Still more vehemently did Ber-nard Gilpin raise his voice against the conduct of the gentlemen: “Todrive poor people out of their dwellings they consider no crime, butsay the land belongs to them, and then cast them out of their homes likevermin. Thousands in England now beg from door to door who for-merly kept honest houses. Never (said he) were there so many gentle-men and so little gentleness.”115 Scory (Bishop of Rochester), in theyear 1551, presented a petition to the king, in which he complains thatnow there are only “ten ploughs where formerly there were from fortyto fifty.” Two acres out of three have been put out of culture, and wherehis Majesty’s predecessors had a hundred men fit for service, now thereare scarcely half that number, and those in a much worse position. Thecountry population in England would soon be “more like the slaveryand peasantry of France than the ancient and godly yeomanry of En-gland.”116

After the death of Henry VIII, the Lord Protector, who appearsnot to have been wanting in sympathy for the distress of the lowerclasses in the country, endeavoured to control the evil in a more effi-cient manner than by laws which remained a mere dead letter. He ap-pointed an extraordinary commission, “The King’s Commission forthe Redress of Inclosures in Oxford, Berkshire, Warwickshire,Leicestershire, Bedfordshire, Buckingham, and Northampton, the coun-ties principally concerned, composed of a jury of twelve good and lefulmen, to inquire into the violations of the law.” He exhorted the com-


mission to fulfil their office without any respect to persons, and fear-lessly to bring to account those who had violated the laws of HenryVIII for the maintenance of tillage. A kind of memorial has been handeddown to us of the state of things, which was laid before the commis-sion, by John Hales, one of their most active members. These couldnot be painted in darker colours than they are there described. Ruineddwellings and evicted husbandmen were everywhere to be seen; whereformerly 12,000 men dwelt there were now scarcely 4,000; sheep andoxen, destined to be eaten by man, have devoured men; the defensivepower of the country had fallen into danger by depopulation; the kinghad been obliged to take into his service foreign troops, German, Ital-ian, and Spanish, &c. &c. He specifies the following five principalheads of grievances:— Ruin of villages and agricultural buildings;conversion of arable land into pasture; great multitude of sheep; amal-gamation of farms; and the failure of hospitality on account of the dis-solution of monasteries. He also expressly mentions that inclosures (inthemselves), which every one undertakes himself on his own groundand soil, are beneficial to the common good, the question only being ofsuch inclosures by which the rights of others suffered, when “housesof husbandry” were pulled down, or arable land converted to pasture.

The deplorable and resultless issue of this extraordinary com-mission, which was greeted with great rejoicing by the country people,is sufficiently well known. So great was the power of the provincialnobility in the counties, and so weak the protecting and helping handof the central government, that, in many places, the witnesses whowere summoned did not dare to appear; and in others, those who hadgiven truthful depositions were persecuted in various ways by the land-lords.117 Add to this, the nobles had resolute friends among the com-missioners; so that at last the whole official report of the commissionterminated in a petition to Parliament: “a large landed proprietor ofmore than 100 marks net revenue should not himself farm more of hisland than is sufficient for his household; the great leasehold farms shouldbe partitioned; and the persons who hold abbey lands should be obligedto keep an honest continual house and household on the same.”118 JohnHales even, who had gone into the matter with so much zeal, proposedto the king to grant a general pardon for all that had happened—for the

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benefit of the rich inclosers as well as of the poor sufferers—in thehope that the rich violators of the law would amend.119 In connection,however, with the petition of the commission, he also brought threebills into Parliament: the first had for its object the rebuilding of thedemolished houses and the preservation of tillage; the second was di-rected against raising the prices of the necessaries of life, and espe-cially against the presumed main cause of the same—the cattle trade;and the third was for providing that the great sheep farmers shouldhold and rear their sheep and milch cows in a fixed proportion as tonumber. The first, however, was thrown out by the Upper House, andthe second and third experienced the same fate in the Lower; and JohnHales complained that the sheep were entrusted to the protection of thewolf.120

It is no wonder that under such circumstances the country popu-lation attempted to apply a remedy themselves. The formidable insur-rection of the peasantry in 1549, in the eastern counties, had princi-pally for its object the removal of the inclosures. Similar disturbanceswere frequently repeated at a later period on a smaller scale; and evenat the end of the sixteenth and commencement of the seventeenth cen-tury, insurrections of the peasants occurred in Oxfordshire, and otherplaces in central England, in order to root out the hedges (levellers)and to restore the tillage.

We may learn also that the agrarian revolution progressed underElizabeth, from—among other things—an interesting dialogue, “Acompendious or briefe examination of certayne ordinary complaints,”&c., by W. S., gentleman, of London, 1581.121 In this dialogue, theinclosures, as the crying evil of the times, were discussed by differentpersons—a doctor, a nobleman, and a farmer. The farmer complainsthat he and his class are ruined by the inclosures, which raise rents andcause a dearth of arable land. He has witnessed in his district, in acircuit of less than six English miles, in the last seven years, a dozenploughs lying idle; and lands where sixty persons and more had gainedtheir living, were now occupied by the cattle of one (f. 3). The farmersthemselves, he continues, instead of exclusively cultivating wheat, foundthemselves necessitated to take to grass cultivation and cattle breed-ing, for there was more to be gained by having ten acres in grass than


twenty under grain cultivation. In like manner the doctor (the leader ofthe discussion) agrees that the realm threatens to be in a highly danger-ous position through the rapidly increasing depopulation of the coun-try, the number of idle and unemployed persons, and the disturbancesand insurrections connected therewith, which have latterly occurred inthe country.

With regard to the proper agricultural character of these move-ments, they are represented commonly as having been caused by anexclusively pure pasture husbandry, which had tended to displace thesmall tillage husbandmen. Different circumstances, however, and wit-nesses, show us clearly that this, at least for the most part, was not thecase. The low price of wheat alone, concerning which nearly all theauthorities of the time complain, is sufficient to throw doubt on theprevailing opinion. “All things are fearfully dear, with the sole excep-tion of wheat,” says John Hales, in the above-mentioned statementbefore the Inclosure Committee; and a precisely similar remark on therelative lowness of the price of wheat is found in the “CompendiousDialogue” to which we have just alluded. If the wheat produce hadbeen actually supplanted to any great extent by a permanent grass hus-bandry, this moderate price of corn appears very surprising. Two agri-cultural authors of the sixteenth century, however, give us more accu-rate information concerning the mode of cultivation which then ap-pears to a great extent to have replaced the village and three-field hus-bandry. In the year 1539 a small publication appeared, which was as-cribed to the renowned jurist, Fitzherbert, which has not only gonethrough many editions, but has become the model of a whole series ofsimilar works. It is called “The book of surveying,” in which is to befound a formal prescription for the agrarian changes which are advan-tageous on a manor. Not only does he lay great stress on the point thatit is desirable to separate the manor land from the agrarian communityin which it was often husbanded with the tenants’ lands, on the groundthat it would gain much in value as a separate inclosure (chap. 2); buthe has a whole chapter (40) on how a township which is worth twentymarks a year may be made worth £20 sterling: “Every village has nowthree fields for wheat tillage, one common pasture for horses, one forthe rest of the cattle, and a meadow.” He proposes that each proprietor

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of land, in each of these six portions of the acreage shall keep his prop-erty in one connected plot, and that the old condition of arable land insmall parcels, the regulated community of use, and the common pas-ture shall cease. In this manner each would possess six separate piecesof land, which he might inclose, three, out of former arable land, andthree, out of grass land. But he adds to this his advice, that wheneverthe arable land may have become exhausted by wheat cultivation itshould be laid down in grass, and a corresponding quantity of the in-closed pasture land should be broken up for corn cultivation. Thus themanure of the grazing cattle would be utilized for the arable land, and“reist grounde” would be always there, which would grow much cornwith little manure; there would be a saving of shepherds’ wages, and again of much wood from the live hedges which separated the severalinclosures one from another, and which would afford shelter to cattlefrom the weather, &c. &c. Hence the recommendations did not pointtowards a permanent pasture, but, as it appears, to a rather irregularconvertible husbandry. Some ten years later, Tusser (in his Five hun-dred points of good husbandry)122 describes still more plainly the field-grass husbandry as the one prevailing on inclosed lands. There is nopublication which gives us a clearer insight into the struggle betweenthe two systems, in which Tusser, as a rational farmer, takes a decidedpart on the side of inclosures, and cries down in every possible way theold village husbandry—“it not only deteriorated produce, but inducedidleness, thieving,” &c. &c. “In the districts in which it prevailed thecountry population were much poorer than in those where there wereinclosures; a poor man who possessed two acres of inclosed land, wasmuch better off than if he had twenty in an uninclosed state.”123 Theordinary succession of crops on uninclosed land was, according toTusser, three-field husbandry, with compulsory rotation, and commonpasturage,124 and also exceptionally two-field husbandry; on inclosedland, on the other hand, he praises the freedom of choice which restswith the landlord,125 and mentions a succession of crops, for a consid-erable time, fallow, barley, peas, and wheat, and then either fallowagain or laying down in pasture, and a lengthened use for grass crops(October’s Husbandry, ch. xviii. v. 22). In whatever manner the suc-cession of crops may have been managed on inclosed lands, according


to him, as a general rule, the ground which had been exhausted bywheat crops was obliged to be laid down in grass (January’s Husbandry,ch. xxiii. v. 52). Concerning the duration of the pasture years, indeedwe learn nothing. Thus, the question here is not that the inclosing anddissolution of village husbandry is identical with the laying down theland to permanent pasture; on the contrary, according to this author,tillage was the rule on inclosed lands, and the conversion of arableland into pasture was merely temporary, which indeed is a peculiarityof convertible husbandry. We may mention here, incidentally, that Tusserdescribes Suffolk and Essex as counties which are almost wholly in-closed; while the common village husbandry prevails in Leicester,Norfolk and Cambridge. With the exception of Essex, W. S. describesthe counties of Kent and Northampton as those in which the land ismost inclosed.

It is very plain that such an agricultural system, especially whenit sprung up under the then prevailing state of affairs in England, musthave obtained a decisive preponderance over that which had been inuse up to that time. The fundamental principle of convertible husbandryis the combination and reciprocal operation of corn cultivation andcattle breeding on a large scale, and which is realized in the highestdegree in modern agriculture by interposing a green or pulse crop be-tween every two white crops. It was the results of this system which, atthe beginning of this century, first turned the attention of judiciousGerman farmers to England and the Norfolk four crops. The alterna-tion of corn cultivation and cattle grazing on the same land is alikeadvantageous to the production of the grain and the rearing of the cattle.The grass crops on the parcels which are from time to time ploughedup and manured, especially when the preliminary climatic conditionsof this husbandry exist, are much stronger and of a better quality thanthose on the constant pasture of the three-field system. In the first pas-ture years hay-harvesting is frequently so abundant that a better supplyof winter food for the cattle is obtained. If even the pasture after a timeof free grazing should have deteriorated, a fallow year would follow,with a deep and repeated ploughing, and the returns of the wheat har-vest on such land would be much richer than would ever have beenobtained by a three-field husbandry. For, as we have already remarked,

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according to Fitzherbert, in a three-field husbandry, the manure of thecattle was spread on the common pasture, while under the inclosedsystem it came to the benefit of the land which, at a later period, had tobe broken up for tillage. In the fallow year the decaying grass seedenriched the arable land, and the stall manure was more copious onaccount of the improved winter feeding. On the contrary, in a commonthree-field husbandry, regular cattle breeding was scarcely possible.On the arable land, grain cultivation was the rule, the common pas-tures were neglected and poor. Above all, a scarcity of winter fodderexisted in the highest degree. For this reason the meadows suited forhay-growing had a disproportionately high value, and yet from insuffi-cient manure often afforded merely a scanty produce. Since winterfodder was so dear the cattle were left upon the pasture, even when itcould only afford the most precarious nourishment, which, with strawfood, hardly sustained them through the winter.

In Germany the opinion is now prevalent since the researches ofThünen, that the regular convertible husbandry was a much more pro-ductive system than the three-field husbandry, and therefore it was onlypossible to make the transition from one to the other when the produceof the land was at a high price. But the researches of Thünen relatedonly to the husbandry of Mecklenburg as it existed in his time. It israther an essential property of convertible husbandry that it can as-sume with ease different grades of intensity (Intensivität). By length-ening the pasture time, and thereby the time of the whole successionsof crops, the cost of cultivation can be lessened at pleasure. The sur-face of the fallow which is to be ploughed, and of the fields which areto be cultivated each season, in relation to the whole, and also theamount of labour which is thereby expended on a given extent of land,must be indeed smaller, the more the grass or pasture years are pro-longed. Hence it was not necessary that the prices of production shouldrise to a certain height in relation to the cost of cultivation, in order tomake the transition to convertible husbandry appear advantageous.

There are, however, two circumstances which are indispensableto such a transition. First, the climate must be favourable to grass growthwhich requires considerable atmospheric moisture, and it is only undersuch a condition that after several wheat crops the ground can be im-


mediately laid down with profit for grass culture. Where this conditionis wanting, so long as no herbage or clover cultivation is present, theconstant partition of arable land and pasture, where it has once existed,will be retained. In Germany, therefore, the principal lands which havebeen used for convertible husbandry are coast-lands, such as Holsteinand Mecklenburg; or mountain districts with a considerable rainfall.But the above requirement is exactly fulfilled in the sea-climate ofEngland, so that it is not easy to explain how a three-field husbandrycould have been so long pursued instead of a field system so especiallyindicated by the local conditions. For this reason it appears to us prob-able that the system of a permanent separation of pasture and arableland was imported by a people whose former place of residence had acontinental climate, and we may presume that these were the Anglo-Saxons. The movement then of the sixteenth century was merely areturn to the natural state of agriculture suited to England.

A second momentum, which perhaps is not always an indispens-able condition of the convertible system, but which may always bedesignated as especially advantageous in a lower degree of culture, is afavourable condition for the sale of the produce of the cattle breedingin comparison with the demand for corn. With a dense population andhigh prices of all agricultural produce, cattle breeding on a large scale,which is connected with this husbandry system, can be made to pay onaccount of its favourable reaction on corn culture; but with a moreextensive husbandry, and a low price of every produce of the soil, thisexpensive way of raising the corn crop can never be advantageous. Insuch a case it will be always better to cultivate a larger part of the soilwith corn (with a light manuring) than indirectly to raise the produceby fodder cultivation, cattle breeding, and thick manuring on a smallerextent of ground. The convertible husbandry, under such circumstances(if the product of the cattle breeding cannot in itself be made a remu-nerative object), will occasion the parts of the farm which are not un-der corn cultivation to remain for the most part unused, and thus theywill lose their principal advantage over the three-field husbandry.

In this respect the circumstances of the times were especiallyfavourable to the transition.

At the end of the Middle Ages, and above all, in the sixteenth

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century, money payments (geldwirthschaft) (the proportionately earlyuse of which in England we have already alluded to) made most rapidprogress. The division of labour between town and country was at thistime already supplanted, in a measure, by an international division oflabour. The small towns, whose industrial produce had hitherto beenconsumed by the country, which gave back its surplus of agriculturalproduce in return, began to fall into decay; and in everything whichhad any relation to an interchange of commodities between countryand town they were supplanted by foreign trade and industry. It occursin the above-mentioned dialogue (fol. 47. 48), “that, what was for-merly produced in the provincial towns, every one now obtains fromLondon or from foreign countries;” and this state of things is lamentedin many old publications of the time, as well as the prevalent consump-tion of foreign produce, the decay of the old corporate towns, and theenormous growth of London, which were matters which also then ex-cited the grave consideration of the Legislature.126 But the more for-eign wares were in use, so much the more naturally must the demandbe increased for those inland products which would sell in foreign parts,and the most important article of export in England during the six-teenth century, as well as nearly throughout the Middle Ages, was wool.Tin and lead also, skins, hides, and leather, beer and cheese, which arepartly also the produce of cattle breeding, are mentioned as articles ofexport about this time; but all these together, with perhaps the excep-tion of tin, were of minor importance when compared with wool andwoollen fabrics. Their production must also have been much increasedas foreign articles became more and more in demand from increasingluxury, and their price must have been raised by the demand for theproduce of French and Italian industry, for foreign iron and wine, spicesand pigments. To this, another circumstance must be added which wasfavourable to the relative increase in the price of wool. In the secondhalf of the sixteenth century the general rise in prices which followedthe discovery of silver wealth in America principally commenced, andreached the highest point in Western Europe. When such a country asEngland was first affected by this rise in prices, it must have first hadits influence on articles of export; and then, by degrees, the highersilver prices which were offered in the international trade for exports


must also have had an influence on the price of the remaining waresand labour. During the whole time of the transition, the increased quan-tity of silver which was obtained for the articles of export, operated asa premium on their production, in comparison with such wares forwhich at that time there was no foreign demand, such as wheat.127 Never,remarks J. Smith, had the English wool trade risen to a greater heightthan in the time from Edward VI to the death of Queen Elizabeth,128

and hence the frequent complaints, which have been already referredto, of the dearness of wool and the cheapness of corn, which W. S.proposed to counteract by prohibiting the export of wool and allowingfreedom to that of corn, which up to that time, as a rule, had beenprohibited. Unfortunately, we must renounce the wish of followingstatistically this rise in prices. The statements concerning the prices ofwool which we were enabled to collect were too imperfect, and espe-cially too inaccurate, to allow of any certain conclusions being drawnfrom them. It is to be hoped that the continuation of the history ofprices by Rogers will soon offer trustworthy materials, from the regis-ters of the Oxford Colleges, more reliable than that already treated of,for the period of the fourteenth century, in which the price of wool, inits relation to the estimation of prices, can be very little depended upon,on account of the exceeding difference in the weight of the “petra,”129

by which weight wool was commonly sold.— (Vide Appendix B.)Since, in the three-field husbandry, there was no room to farm in

the direction of cattle breeding, it was necessary to have recourse ratherto the convertible, or on occasions to pure-grass husbandry, and thusthe common village husbandry in its old form, could not possibly adaptitself to the new conditions. In other places, it is true, there were vil-lages with a common convertible husbandry, as, for example, in Hol-stein; and it is with justice that Hanssen has latterly denounced thevery frequent identification of village and three-field husbandry. But,in order to accomplish such a transition, a complete exchange of all theplots of ground, and a new partitioning of both the arable land andpasture, would have been necessary, and if such a new division of theacreage had been attempted, most certainly the large landed propri-etors would have succeeded in establishing a simultaneous abolitionof the constraint as to a succession of crops, and the complete conver-

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sion of all the possessions into private property. We have already seenhow their efforts were made in this direction even in the Middle Ages.Inclosures, indeed, according to the manner in which we make them inmodern times, were desirable, and in this light they were commendedin a just point of view, as well by Fitzherbert as by W. S. But the im-mense difficulty of such a measure, without any fixed legislative en-actments, must speak for itself,130 and this was without doubt the rea-son that in so many places in Europe the village and three-field hus-bandry was preserved so completely unchanged from century to cen-tury. But in England there was this addition—viz. that the lords of themanor would not have been inclined to allow of a division of the pas-turage, which they looked upon as their own property, but rather theenfranchising the same from the pasturage rights of the commonersmust have appeared to them the object to be aimed at. As, for thesereasons, a general new partitioning of the land could only be accom-plished in exceptional cases, there only remained feasible, the forma-tion of the larger landed properties, and the separation of them fromthe village community (which, as we have already mentioned, com-menced in the Middle Ages), as a means of carrying out a system ofhusbandry which corresponded to the climatic and mercantile condi-tions.131

But when once any change in a system is indicated by the verynature of the circumstances, then neither the power of ancient customnor respect for vested rights can long oppose any resistance.

It is still very remarkable how the supplanting of so many smalllanded proprietors just then took place, when that class among themwhich stood in the most unfavourable position in a legal point of view,had obtained a protection at law for their rights of property. In spite ofthis, these copyholders were driven in great numbers from their ruralhides.132 When an extraordinary Royal Commission like that of theProtector,133 ordered to inquire into illegal inclosures and the evictionof peasants, could not prevail against the ruling classes, it is very easyto conceive that the protection of the High Courts of Judicature or thejudges in their circuits could afford little help to the poor small peas-ant. His rights rested on the custom of the manor, which was to beproved from the manor roll, in the possession of the lord of the manor;


and a copyholder could lose these rights by numerous acts, by whichhe failed in his obligations towards the lord, or even by acting other-wise than in unison with rights established by custom of the manors.The small copyholders were not in a position to establish such rightsbefore learned tribunals, when opposed by experienced advocates.Latymer, on this account, accuses the judges even, of injustice andcorruption (being open to bribes), and maintains that, “in these daysgold is all-powerful with the tribunals.” Certainly, also, a time like thatunder the rule of Henry VIII and the following years, while so great arevolution in Church and State was in progress, could not have beenfavourable for the support of rights which were dependent upon cus-tom. A change so sudden as the secularization of the monastery prop-erties, and which appeared to the mass of the population to be so un-just, must have shaken the respect of the rural population for all tradi-tional rules relative to property. Thus, a publication which appeared inthe year 1546 complains that the new possessors of church propertygenerally declared that, by the secularization, all the old rights of prop-erty of the copyholders were extinguished. The possessors, accordingto the custom of the manor, were obliged either to give up their hold-ings, or to retain them on temporary leases.134 The modern agriculturecommencing at that time tended without doubt greatly towards a stateof pure leasing instead of the mediaeval relations between the lord ofthe soil and the farmer, as well as to a dissolution of the agrarian com-munity; and the Legislature came powerfully to the aid of these inno-vations. By 21 Henry VIII. c. 15, leases, although not in writing, ob-tained a statutory recognition; and 32 Henry VIII. c. 28 (enabling stat-ute) also conferred permission to the tenant-in-tail to conclude leasesfor a lengthened period.135

It is no part of our task here to follow these movements beyondthe sixteenth century; but this much is certain, that however power-fully they showed themselves at that time, they only attained their ob-ject to a limited extent. The official reports concerning the duration ofthe agrarian community up to this century have been already referredto, and it has also been shown that the smaller landed proprietors hadcertainly in no wise completely disappeared in the sixteenth century.The freeholders had for the most part maintained their holdings, and

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the copyholders had not nearly all been supplanted, or converted intoleaseholders. Still, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, Cokecould say in a well-known judgment, that the third part of Englandconsisted of copyhold. But the revolution which then began has con-tinued even into our times. Its progress has been sometimes quicker,sometimes slower, and gradually the connection which there was at thecommencement between the two phenomena — inclosures and peas-ant eviction — has been less close; but it still remains unmistakeable,that among the many circumstances which have caused the completedisappearance of the mediaeval peasant class, the first and most im-portant was the dissolution of the old communities in land. A transmu-tation of the agricultural association, instead of its abrogation, wouldhave placed the small holders in a position to adopt the same mode ofproceeding as the larger proprietors, and given them a position in thecommunity, to balance the economic and social power of the great lordsof the soil. Also a thorough consolidation and new partitioning of theacreage, with an establishment of separate husbandry, would have beenmore favourable than the course which the reform took, and long ad-hered to. For, a simultaneous separation of all properties would at leasthave had the advantage of making independent, and collecting intoone spot both the small and the larger possessions. But as, in the firstplace, none of these expedients were adopted, and as the InclosureActs, which issued at a later period, for the partitioning of the severalcommunities, were generally unfavourable to the small properties,136

and besides, as the enormous law expenses fell much more heavily onthe smaller landed properties than on the larger, it is not to be won-dered at, that when in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the largefortunes acquired by trade were sought to be invested in land and soil,and the purchasers were contented to receive the smallest interest fortheir investments, that the remainder of the small landed proprietorssold their hereditary possessions; part of them invested their capital tomore advantage in trade or as farmers, and part pursued agricultureunder more favourable conditions, beyond the sea, on their own groundand soil.

Appendix.Fenus agitare, et in usuras extendere, ignotum: ideoque magis servaturquam si vetitum esset. Agri pro numero cultorum, ab universis pervices occupantur, quos mox inter se secundum dignationem partiuntur:facilitatem partiendi camporum spatia praestant.

Arva per annos mutant; et superest ager: nec enim cum ubertateet amplitudine soli labore contendunt, ut pomaria conserunt, et prataseparent, et hortos rigent: sola terrae seges imperatur.

Unde annum quoque ipsum non in totidem degerunt species:hiems, et ver, et sestas intellectual ac vocabula habent: autumni perindenomem ac bona ignorantur.— Tacitus XX VI. Germania.

Pro numero cultorum—per vices.It is only by fresh divisions, that land, once apportioned among a

certain number of cultivators, can remain in any permanent relation tothe number of those cultivators.

Again: it is only by, an increase of either land, or the product ofland, proportionate to the increase of the population, that the respec-tive competences of the cultivators can remain the same.

Hence the words “pro numero cultorum” create a difficulty whichis enhanced by the words “per vices.”

Mox: This is the most difficult word of the section. “Per vices”implies change from one set of holders to another; and “mox —partiuntur” does more. It denotes a change from a system of periodicaltransfer to one of permanent appropriation.

First comes a season when land shifts from owner to owner; next,one wherein it passes to a permanent state of an individual or jointproperty.

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Agri: This I think had a double importance according to its rela-tion.

a. As opposed to “arva” it means land in grass, wood, or fen, incontradistinction to land under the plough.

b. As opposed to land which had been divided and apportioned, itmeans unapportioned or undivided.

Agri pro numero, &c.: The proper commentator on this difficultsection is some conveyancer learned in ethnology, rather than a simpleethnologist.

The separate words, however, must be first considered.Arva: Arable land.Per annos: Annually; every year.Mutant: From a crop to fallow; not from one holder to another.Superest: Stands over to spare; is abundant— as, ne ferrum quidem

superest (§6 = There is no excess even of iron).Sola— seges: Corn (wheat and barley, §23) to the exclusion of

green crops, pulse, and vegetables.Hiems, et ver, et sestas: Winter, spring (for — aar Danish, fruhjahr

German = for year), and summer. Such are the only Germanic namesof the seasons, even in the present English; autumn being of Latinorigin. Fall (in America), back-end (in more than one provincial dia-lect), and harvest, are all—though of native origin — recent terms.

I cannot realize the nature of the tenure here noticed. The limitedtenure expressed by “per vices” cannot well have consisted in a certainallotment as private property accompanied by a certain share in anindividual common, though such has been the view of careful writers.

The word “mox” complicates this view. For the occupation, inthe first instance (pro numero cultorum, ab universis per vices), wefind no trace of individual possession; for that is the second (partitiosecundum dignitatum), none of joint ownership. Yet “mox” impliesthat the two forms were successive rather than simultaneous.

That there was much joint occupancy, except on the Marches, Iam slow to believe. The house, at least, was permanent. So must thefarms occupied by the “servi” of §25 have been. The whole tenor ofGerman history goes the same way.

It is safe, then, to hold with Mr. Kemble, that when the Germans


“changed the arable year to year, there was land to spare,” that is, forcommons “and pasture”; but it does not amount to a proof that settledproperty in land was not part of the Teutonic scheme; it implies nomore than this, that within the Mark which was the property of all,what was this year one man’s corn-land might the next be another man’sfallow; a process very intelligible to those who know anything of thesystem of cultivation yet prevalent in parts of Germany or have everhad interest in what we call Lammas meadows.

This even seems too much—to say nothing about the difficultyattached to the words “another man’s fallow.” What could such a fal-low be? Not for corn; since the land had been cropped by the previousowner. Not for a green crop; since there were none such known. Norfor the herbage, i.e., the weeds and aftergrowth of the harvest, which insome parts of England is worth from two to three shillings an acre. Theharvests of Germany are too late for this.

I think that the sentence of Tacitus has so little to do with thetenure of the land at all, that it must be taken with what follows, ratherthan with what precedes, in which case it applies to husbandry only—not to the laws of landed property.

Nothing but corn was grown. This was new to an Italian: whohad seen vetches, flax and so many other products taken off the sameland in either succession or rotation. As a consequence of this:

There was no such thing as a second crop on the same land with-out an interval.

This was also new to an Italian. The abundance of land, however,allows it.

As far, then, as the present passage goes, the arvum which hasjust borne a crop, although left to nature, is as much the property of theoriginal owner, in the interval between two tilths, as it was during theseed-time and harvest.

The difficulties connected with the tenure of land it neither re-moves nor increases.

By considering the statement as one for which Caesar rather thanTacitus is responsible, and limiting the account in Caesar to the occu-pancy of the lands of the Sequani, dispossessed by Ariovistus, we ap-proach a solution.

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We are, then, at liberty to consider an occupation which is at oneand the same time imperfect and temporary in the light of abnormaltenure, adapted to the country of a conquered enemy only. Yet eventhen, the details are remarkable. Was the occupatio “per vices” merequartering of successive bodies of warriors (warriors only) upon re-cently invaded and imperfectly subdued districts, and the subsequentpartitio the distribution of the land of such districts after the conquesthad become complete, the possession assured, and the conversion ofchieftains and captains into comparatively peaceable settlers had be-come practicable? Such a view would best reconcile Caesar’s state-ment with probability.— Latham. — H. A. O.

Page 10. The passage in Marshall’s pamphlet is as follows:—“Each parish and township (at least in the more central and

northern districts) comprised different descriptions of land, hav-ing been subjected during successive ages to specified modes ofoccupancy under ancient and strict regulations which time hadconverted into law. These parochial arrangements, however, var-ied somewhat in the different districts, but in the more central, andgreater part of the kingdom, not widely.”H. A. O.

B.Swiss historians have recently shown, that in the four cantons whichborder on the Lake of Lucerne, cattle-breeding and pasture-farminghad superseded tillage in the latter centuries of the Middle Ages in agreater degree even than in England. (See T. Martin Kiem, in the“Geschichtsfreund des historischen Vereins der fünf Orte derUrschweiz,” Bd. XXL (1866), and Dr. G. Meyer von Knonau “DieVerdrangung des Ackerbaus durch Alpenwirthschaft inSchweizerischen Hochgebirgs thälern,” in the “jahrbuch des SchweizerAlpenclub.” The origin of this change in Switzerland was not quiteidentical, neither was it followed by precisely similar results as that inEngland; but in both countries the development of an external com-merce contributed much to facilitate the agrarian revolution.


C.Note .— Convertible Husbandry.

The word in German which I have rendered by convertible husbandryis “Feldgraswirthschaft.”

In the first edition of this translation I had translated it literally,fieldgrass husbandry; but, as this is not an English technical term, itled to misapprehension; for which reason I have now used an expres-sion which explains as nearly as possible the German appellation.

In Germany the regular fieldgrass husbandry consists in a regu-lated interchange between plots of arable land and pasture; so that, forexample, if a farm were divided into twelve plots, of which every yearone arable plot was to be converted into pasture, and one of pasturebroken up for arable purposes, each separate plot of land would thenremain five to six years pasture and five to six years arable.

It is well known that, on account of the great difference in thenature of soils and circumstances of climate, &c., great variety of sys-tems of successions of crops prevail in England; but the above generaldescription of German “Feldgraswirthschaft” sufficiently shows that itis similar in all essential points to the convertible husbandry which inthis country first originated in Scotland.

Wilde Feldgraswirthschaft, or irregular convertible husbandry,consists in an irregular interchange of the several plots from arable topasture, and from pasture to arable—an example of which is quotedfrom Marshall at page 11.

H. A. O.

Notes:

1. Thus Wilhelm Maurer writes in the Zeitschrift für DeutschesRecht, on the Anglo-Saxon Marks, vol. xvi. p. 203:—

“A mere casual glance at the counties of England at thepresent time will suffice to show that isolated farms are generallythe rule, and that the English village is perfectly different from theGerman ‘dorf,’ inasmuch as in the former the day labourers, smallshopkeepers, and innkeepers, live in contiguous dwellings laid outin streets; the actual farmers, although belonging to the villagecommunity, living on larger or smaller farms scattered over theproperty.

“These conditions, looking back to old times, lead us to morecertain conclusions, that settlements with isolated farms were thenthe most prevalent.”

But the village of the present time, as Professor Hanssen trulyremarks, is not identical with the extinct village of the agricultural com-munity of former times, and the ancient common lands of the old vil-lages have been divided amongst the lands of the present isolated farms.

He who travels in the marshes of North-West Germany, and con-tinually finds only small shopkeepers, artificers, and day labourers liv-ing together, while the farmers inhabit isolated farms here and thereoutside the villages, deceives himself, if he supposes that the latterkind of settlement was the original one. It has been the case for centu-ries that farmhouses have been built outside the villages on the landsbrought together by exchange or purchase, and this still continues.

2. We have been unfortunately obliged to quote these descrip-tions sometimes from the several original editions, and sometimes fromthe well-known epitomized works of Marshall, as in the course of this


work at times only exclusively the latter, and at times the former, wereat our disposition.

3. Our knowledge of the remains of mediaeval agricultural ad-ministration would be much extended if we had at our disposition thematerials collected in the archives of the Inclosure Commission insti-tuted for the dissolution of the community in common holdings.

4. George Wingrove Cooke, on Inclosures and Rights of Com-mons, 4th edition, London, 1864, pp. 47–50, calls the last kind of com-monable fields “lammas lands,” and the first, “shack lands.” For therest he obtained his information concerning these conclusions almostexclusively from the cited report, and complains that the juridical au-thors pay no attention whatever to the commonable lands.

5. Report on Inclosures, No. 4352, and Wingrove Cooke, l.c. 48.6. Flurzwang, i.e., compulsory cultivation with regard to rotation

of crops.7. A Review of the Reports of the Board of Agriculture from the

Midland Department of England. By Mr. Marshall. York, 1815, p. 334.8. Ibid. p. 485, l.c.9. Ibid. p. 284, l.c.10. A Review, &c., from the Southern Department. York, 1817,

p. 48.11. Ibid. p. 191, l.c.12. General View of the Agriculture of Huntingdonshire. By H.

Stone. 1793.13. Marshall, Midland Department, p. 452.14. Ibid. p. 409. l.c.15. Southern Department, p. 191.16. Midland Department, p. 452; Southern Department, p. 215.17. A Farmer’s Tour through the East of England. London, 1771,

p. 458.18. View of the Agriculture of Suffolk. By Arthur Young. 1794,

p. 14.19. Marshall, Midland Department, pp. 334, 348, et seq.20. Ibid. p. 520, et seq.21. Marshall, Southern Department, p. 203, et seq.22. The use of the word (bauerschaft) here translated peasantry,

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must not lead us to suppose that our present agricultural labourers arethe class meant.

23. On the Appropriation and Inclosure of Commonable and In-termixed Lands, by Mr. Marshall, London, 1801, p. 1, et seq.

24. See extracts from the reports of G. B. Worgan and Fraser, inMarshall, Southern Department, pp. 525 and 531.

25. Archaeologia, London, 1849. Vol. xxxiii. 275.26. Münchener kritische Ueberschau, 1 Bd. 1853, S. 63, ff.27. Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 2 Aufl., Leipsig, 1858, in Glossar.,

s.v. mearc, S. 631.28. Page 63, 1.c.29. Rectitudines Singularum Personarum. Halle, 1842, p. 23, et

seq.30. Words and Places, by the Rev. Isaac Taylor, London, 1864, p.

119; quoted in Quarterly Review, July, 1864.31. Loco citato, p. 52.32. Curtillum, i.e., a small village consisting of a few houses, a

small farm, or rustic dwelling, having a garden, curtilage.—H. A. O.33. Of similar dues in Germany, see G. L. v. Maurer “Geschichte

der Frohnhofe,” iii. s. 195. Already, according to the law books, eachfarmyard was to be hedged in by its possessor.— Sachsishes Landrecht,ii. 49, §2; Schwäbisches Landrecht, W. c. 398. Also later writers repeatthis and similar instructions, that e.g., in Enkenboch and Warterburg inthe Palatinate, “ every one shall inclose and hedge in his small farm.”In a similar manner also the old Jute law prescribes (from 1240 A.D.)iii. chap. 57, van thunen tho makende (on making hedges) “that everyvillage shall be inclosed by a hedge,” and gives detailed rules for theduty of every villager to put up his part of the common fence whichinclosed the whole village as well as the single farmsteads.

34. Loco citato, p. 26.35. Codex Diplomaticus Anglo-Saxonum, III. p. xl.36. On the difference between the original small inclosure be-

longing to the homestead, and the later smaller garden and meadowplots outside the village, vide Hanssen, in a review of the German edi-tion of this work in the Göttinger gelehrten Anzeigen, 1870, p. 1329.

37. Ettmuller, “Lexicon Anglo-Saxonicum,” p. 735; translates


stôdfald, “armentum equorum”; but the sense given above in this placecannot be doubtful.—See Kemble in “Codex Diplomat.” III. p. xxiv.Falud, fald, is the same word as fold, e.g., Sheepfold.

38. report on Commons Inclosure, 1844, N. 8204.39. A General Introduction to Domesday Book, by Sir H. Ellis.

London, 1833, vol. i. p. 100, f.40. Hanssen, Zeitschrift fur du gesammte Staatswissenschaft, bd.

xxi.41. Glavem, here is put for clavem; from clavis, in its mediaeval

sense of locus clausus.—H. A. O.42. Registr. Prum. I. 695, at G. L. v. Maurer, Frohnhofe III. p.

317.43. Vide Appendix.44. The passage in Tacitus above alluded to, is as follows: “Agri

pro numero cultorum ab universis per vices occupantur, quos mox in-ter se secundum dignationem partiunter; facilitatem partiendi camporumspatia praestant. Arva per annos mutant et superest ager nec enim cumubertate et amplitudine soli labore contendunt, ut pomaria conserunt,et prata separent, et hortos rigent: sola terrae seges imperatur.”

Now the question is, What is the meaning of Tacitus? Murphy’stranslation is evidently wrong; neither can we admit the reading “persicos,” instead of “per vices.” We consider the sense to be, that theGermans cultivated their lands by turns, and not that they wandered todifferent places like the Scythians. As Horace, Lib. iii., Ode 24:—

Campestres melius Scythae.(Quorum plaustra vagas rite trahunt domos)Vivunt, et rigidi GetaeImmetata quibus jugera liberasFruges et Cererem ferunt;Nec cultura placet longior annuâ.

— Vide Appendix.H. A. O.45. It is well known that opinions on this subject differ. Waitz, in

the “History of German Administration,” vol. i., edition 2nd, p. 93, etseq., is the last advocate of the opinion that there was in Germany inthe time of Tacitus a permanent separation of arable land and pastur-age, while the opposite view, which considers that the passage in Tacitus

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(“Germania,” c. 26), points to a field-grass husbandry, and which ap-pears to us to be the best grounded, is defended by Hanssen in the“History of the Field Systems of Germany,” 1. c. p. 54, et seq. VideAppendix.

46. Abhandlung der Kon. Ges, d. Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, 6Band, 1556, §199 f.

47. Zelga — in old German, zelch — celga-zelge, the third partof a hide. Adelung.—H. A. O.

48. No. 255. Item praedicta villa habere debet in eodem pratocommunem pasturam, videlicet, quse “ymene morlese” appellatur, cumaliis villatis scilicet, Somerforde, Pole et Kemele.

49. e.g., B. N. 307, “and on king’s bochholte fif vena gang.”50. King Earduulf gives the Bishop “Hrofensis ecclesiae,” as a

compensation for a right of pasturage taken from it; another, “XII.gregum porcoruin ad serbandam in publicis locis.” In many places it isuncertain whether the kings granted hides with rights of pasturage onlyon the common lands appertaining to them, or whether the pasturagerights went beyond this.

51. e.g., N. 281, ii. “wenagang mid cyninges wenum—111 oxnumgers mid cyninges oxnum,” and elsewhere.

52. Concerning these royal rights of pasturage, which occur in allparts of England, see Kemble, Saxons I. p. 293.

53. Trinoda necessitas, i.e., the triple service, vis expeditiomilitaris, pontis et arcis cxstructio, to which all Anglo-Saxon propertyin land was subject, even the allodiatia bona were not exempt fromthese dues.—H. A. O.

54. The statute “Quia emptores terrarum et tenementorum defeodis Magnatum,” &c., 18 Edw. I. 1290, was against subinfeudation;it ordered that the feoffee should hold his land of the chief lord, andnot of the feoffor.—H. A. O.

55. Domesday of St. Paul’s, Introduction, p. xiv.56. Registrum Prioratus, Wigoiniensis, Introduction, p. xvii.57. In some of the registers of land it appears as if the newly-

cultivated property had assumed a particular status, differing as wellfrom the “terra tenentium” as from the “terra dominica.” In Domesdayof St. Paul’s, after dominicum, villenagium, libere tenentes, cotarii were


cited, it is mentioned very particularly, “isti tenent de novis essartis,”and certainly these almost always paid a high rent, but were free fromservice. We have not, however, been able to gain any further insightinto this element from our authorities, nor from any of the juridicalwriters.

Villani means the serfs who were glebse adscripti.—H. A. O.Socmanni, those inferior landholders who had lands in “soc,” or

franchise of the king or some great baron; privileged villeins, who,though their tenures were absolutely copyhold, yet had an interest equalto a freehold. Their services were fixed.—H. A. O.

Bordarii, those who held small tenures, generally of inferior land,under the lord, which they could neither sell nor alienate without con-sent, and who also owed certain services.—H. A. O.

Forlandae, fields of several acres lying together in rows (?) — H.A. O.

58. Libere tenentes with obligation to agricultural services arementioned, ex gr. in the Rotuli Hundred, vol. ii. pp. 629, 644, 645, 650,656; liberi socmanni with the same obligation, p. 484.

59. In Hundred Rolls, vol. ii. p. 629, the size of the hide andvirgata on three manors which bordered on each other is given. On thefirst it comprised six virgatae of twenty-eight acres; on the second, sixof forty acres; and on the third, four of forty-eight acres. See also intro-duction to Domesday of St. Paul’s, p. lxiii. Casually we may here no-tice the attempt of Kemble to ascertain and fix the original superficialextent of the Anglo-Saxon hide, in the results of which many learnedGermans have concurred. His conclusion that the hide was a land mea-sure containing thirty-three English acres, is, however, wanting in allinternal probability. With all races of people the hide contained a greateror less superficial extent, according to the condition of the land whichformed its component parts, and it is in the nature of things that itshould have been so; a designation, such as hida, which is apparentlyconnected with hîw, family, and which Beda (Eccl. Hist.) translatesfamina, must have been a land measure which had an equal value forthe support of a family, or for agricultural purposes. (Ploughland,aratrum, as hida is frequently translated in the records, Codex Diplom.Anglo-Sax.) In the state of civilization such as existed in the Anglo-

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Saxon times, the hide cannot certainly be reckoned according to itssuperficial contents. Kemble can only ground his position on very arti-ficial interpretations, and by the assumption of there being two kindsof acres which were then in vogue, of a very different superficial ex-tent.

60. Bovata, modus agri, sec dectus quod tantum terrae contieatquantum bos unus arare potest spacio unins scilicet anni.— H. A. O.

61. Tantum terra quantum una carruca coli potest in anno. – H. A.O.

62. However, according to Bracton, such a “tenementum invillenagio” could pass into the hands of a freeman, who then had todischarge all services and dues the same as a “villanus,” “sed nominevillenagii, et non nomine personae;” but he was freed from those dueswhich were merely consequent on personal servitude. See also Placit.Abbrev. 29 Edw. III. Ebor. Rot. 30, p. 243, tenura in villenagio nonfacit liberum hominem villanum.

63. On account of the double signification of the word in theHundred Rolls, the compilers of the official reports consider it neces-sary to add to the enumeration of the “villani,” “villani sunt servi,” ornativi, e.g., II. pp. 324, 325, 329, 1. c.; while, on the other hand, at thesame period, in the decisions of the Curia Regis, the expression villanusis used to designate the state of personal serfdom, e.g., Placitor. Abbrev.p. 25, et dicunt quod villanus est, quia ipse debet arare et metere etauxilium dare per consuetudinem et quod non potest sine licentia filiamsuam maritare; or, p. 286. villanus fugiens extra terram domini sui nondebet capi sine processu.

64. In the same sense as this token of personal servitude is quotedhere, it is found in the Placit. Abbrev. l.c., and in the Hundred Rolls, II.327, in villenagio sunt V. virgae et tenentes sunt nativi, quod non possuntmaritare filias sine licentia domini.

65. Domesday of St. Paul’s, p. 153, et seq.66. “Ad magnas preearias.” This barbarous expression means

that the peasant was obliged to mow and reap for his master besides hisregular weekly service. The word precaria is explained—servitium quodpraestare tenentur tenentes ceu metendis messibus, falcandis fenis, etaliis servitiis, quando ad id rogati sunt.—H. A. O.


67. This actually exists at the present time in England; when acopyholder dies, the lord of the manor (in some cases) has the right todemand a heriot—the best horse or other animal, and, should these bewanting, the best chattel.—H. A. O.

68. That the most frequently occurring bordarii in Domesday arethe same class with the later cotarii, as they are almost without excep-tion called, is clearly proved from a passage in the Liber Niger (p. 163)of the Abbey of Peterborough, where first the cotsetes are mentioned,and those further on are designated bordarii. Bord, or bordellum, isproperly a small house or hut. In the same Liber Niger a bercharius ismentioned at Estona, qui tenet bordellum (who has a cottage).

69. The small inclosed plots, which were called crofts, were as arule in the immediate vicinity of the dwelling; sometimes it happensthat one dwelling had two crofts, scil. juxta boscum, et juxta domumsuam, “Reg. Wig.” 42 b.; but it was commonly expressly distinguishedfrom the open field, e.g., “Rot. Hund.” II. 661, tenet unum messagiumcum crofto quod tenet demidiam acram, et praeterea tres acras in campis.

70. Only exceptionally we find properties of cotlands of a some-what larger extent, e.g., “Rot. Hund.” II. p. 631—a cotland of 24 acres.

71. On this account also, in some places, persons who had onlyone croft were designated “villani,” while according to the conditionsof their property they were cotarii. This is explained by the double useof the above-mentioned villanus for serf, and for possessors of peasantholdings to which service dues were attached.

72. A Farmer’s Tour through, the East of England. London, 1771,pp. 122, 130.

73. Edinburgh Review, vol. 24 (Nov. 1814), p. 90.74. In the Introduction to the Domesday of St. Paul’s, numerous

instances are found which relate to the making up of the team.75. The virgata was a small piece of land of indefinite size, the

plot of the peasant—“A time there was ere England’s woes began,When every rood of ground maintained its man.”

H. A. O.76. Rogers (History of Agriculture and Prices) could find no trace

of harrowing in the 13th and 14th centuries, since he translates “hercia”by hoe; he doubts whether harrowing was then known. There can, how-

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ever, be no doubt that “hercia, herciare,” which is plainly mentioned asamong agricultural services, is properly translated by Du Cange, andothers, by “to harrow with a harrow.” How can, e.g., herciat per unumdiem cum uno equo ad semen hiemale (Rotul. Hund. II. 461) be under-stood in the sense of “hoeing the land”?

77. Registr. Prior. Wigorn. p. 47a, “curia cum pertinentiis et duaecarucatae terrae de dom. cum pratis et proventibus, et heriotibus etvillanagio tradite sunt villanis ad firmam.” — p. 54b, hsec villa traditaab antiquo villanis ad flrmam ad placitum cum omnibus ad nospertinentibus excepta advocatione ecclesiae et solvunt inde — praetereapercipimus medietatem proventuum et herietum, praeterea debeutmetere, ligare et comportare totum bladum de antiq. dom. de H.” Fromthis farming of old manors must be distinguished the frequent cases inwhich the peasant village alone was let at a fixed rent instead of anyservice dues. In these leases, also, sometimes it was laid down, haecvilla tradita est villanis ad firmam.

78. Bruera, the same as bruariuni, sandy, barren soil, covered witha heathy vegetation, thorns and thistles. — H. A. O.

79. e.g., Rot. Hund. II. 484. Templarii tenent unum pratumseparabile et incluserunt cum fossis et sepibus et fuit commune tem-pore aperto.

80. Domesday of St. Paul’s, p. cxxii.81. Register of Worcester Priory, p. lxvi. There were still manors

existing in our time, on which copyhold and demesne lands lay to-gether in open intermixed fields. See Report on Enfranchisement ofCopyhold Bill, 1851. No. 921.

82. The Priory of Hexham; its Title Deeds, Black Book, &c. Vol.II. 1865.

83. Gewannen means plots of land of nearly equal quality intowhich the German township is divided.—H. A. O.

84. A History of Agriculture, &c., p. 15. Half the arable estate, asa rule, lay in fallow, called warectatio in the language of the time.

85. The Priory of Hexham, &c. Vol. II. p. 96.86. That is late in autumn; in the English Mediaeval records

Martinmas was regularly reckoned in the winter (11 Nov.).87. “What in this country has usually a summer fallow, for which


there are three and sometimes four ploughings, the first is visually inNovember or December, if the ground be dry, across the butts, butoftener lengthwise. The following May it is ploughed across the fur-rows, which is called Stirring (ruren)” Holland. General View of Agri-culture of Cheshire. London, 1808. — H. A. O.

88. The ploughing at the latter end of summer, called “the firststyrringe” by Fitzherbert in the Boke of Husbandry, which took placebetween the fallow and the seed ploughing, and was commonly givento the fallow in the later Middle Ages, appears not to have been thecustom at the time when the rural services were fixed. This secondploughing, intervening between the fallowing and seed ploughing, calledrebinare, has only been found by him mentioned once in the ServiceRegisters (Regist. Prior. Wigorn. 33, “item rebinavit unam acram.” Butthe Peasant Dues correspond to a much earlier state of agriculture thanthat which existed really at the time that they were noted in the Regis-ters; for, according to Fleta, who wrote at the beginning of the reign ofEdward I, this rebinatio was already in use in the regular cultivation ofthe fallow; he says (lib. ii. c. 82), “nam una acra pro frumento trinamexigit aruram.” He indicates (lib. ii. 73) April as the best time for thefallow-balk (warectatio); while the second, the “rebinatio,” after Mid-summer should be done “cum terra pullulaverit post warectum.” Andalready in the middle of the twelfth century, in the counties borderingon London, this second balk had come into vogue, at least for a part ofthe acreage that was lying fallow. In the description of two leased farms,that date at this period, and which are given by W. Hale Hale inDomesday of St. Paul’s, it is laid down, “ad curiam de Waletuna inventsesunt IX viginti acrae de “wareto de quibus XXVIII sunt rebinati (sic)et IX faldati et XXXIII seminati” (p. 131). And of another farm, “etLXXXVII acrae de wareto, et de his XXXVIII rebinati et I et dimid.faldati et XV seminati” (p. 132). According to a lease which is alsorecorded there, at Nastock (the partition of the land of which is men-tioned previously) of the year 1152, the farmer at the expiration of thelease is bound to give up the property with “magnam grangiam plenamex una parte hiemali et ex altera vernali blado, et totum fenum illiusanni et totam saisonem waretatam, et LX acras rebinatas, et faldiciumet femicium secundum facultatem suam.” Evidently it was not yet in

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the power of the tenant to bestow a careful cultivation on the whole ofthe fallow acreage; thus he was obliged to limit the second summerploughing to part of the same; on another part a very different kind ofcultivation was the rule, viz., It was manured by sheep penning(faldicium), or stall dung (femicium); and, finally, it appears that some-times a part was already cultivated. This certainly is an earlier com-mencement of an elaborate cultivation of fallow lands than we canpoint to in Germany. Hanssen (“Zeitschrift fur die gesammteStaatswissenschaft,” B. XXI. s. 92) is of opinion that in Germany aboutthe thirteenth century they had arrived at the triple ploughing of thefallow. Thudichum (“Gau-und Markverfassung,” s. 159) places the“rebinatio,” or second ploughing, as first in use in the fourteenth cen-tury. The citations from the “Landau Territorien,” s. 56, taken from thetwelfth century, are no certain proofs. With regard, however, to thesummer sowing of the fallow, Hanssen cites, l.c. p. 95, several recordsof the Lower Rhine of the middle and end of the thirteenth century,first quoted by Jacobi, as the first indications of a partial cultivation ofthe fallow land.

89. Wainagium = Ganagium; i.e., fallow for ploughing. — H. A.O.

90. The stubble pasturage was proportionately more valuable inEngland on account of the custom of merely reaping the ears of thecorn and leaving the long stubble standing. It was then gathered forthatching. The “colligere stipulam ad cooperiendam domum,” or alsosimply, “colligere stipulam,” frequently appears among the services ofthe peasants, as well as taxes to which the tenants were liable for everyhead of cattle, “quem,” or “quod habent in stipula.”

91. L. Stein (Verwaltungslehre, vii. 266) is of opinion that theright of property in the common pasturage, which modern English lawgives to the lord of the manor, first had its origin in the 24 Carl. II. c.12: and in this sense he combats an adverse assertion of Roscher. Theabove law, whose influence on the history of the common lands inEngland has been judged of in a completely mistaken sense by Stein,was of no importance whatever in that respect. The law did not abro-gate the supreme right of the king in all land and soil as Stein imag-ined, but merely set aside a particular form of tenure, viz. the military


tenure, and changed it into another form of tenure which already ex-isted in the Middle Ages, together with the military tenure, the socagiumliberum (free and common socage). In the same way as with this tenurethe law allowed the tenures by “franc almoign” and “grand sergeanty,”to remain. Stein has also erred completely as to the meaning of jointtenancy, when he states that since 24 Carl. II. c. 12, joint tenancy indi-cates the different conditions of rights to the common pasturage.

92. Mr. Blamire, Inclosure Report, 1844, No. 336, et seq.93. Pasturae, marisci or bruerae totius villae, occur also, II. p.

420, 426, 484, 554, boscus, totius villatae, 534, 535, pastura commu-nis hominibus of Stowe, 496; in other places it is laid down in the samemanner, or as at p. 506, comniuna de Chippenham habet in bruariisVIII quarant in longitudine et in latitudine IIII quarant. Eadem villahabet in morisco, &c. &c.

94. Wingrove Cooke, on “Inclosures and Rights of Commons,”4th edit. London, 1804.

95. Right of approver. Whether is this from appropriare, to ap-propriate, or from probus approbare, to improve? W. Hale Hale adoptsthe first derivation, but manifestly the word is often used in the senseof to improve, as appears from a passage quoted by him from Fleta II.73, in which a servant who administers a property for his master isstyled “approvator fidelis et optimus.”

96. These short-sighted and tyrannical laws were afterwards madeuse of to rob the tenants of their rights. Who was to judge of how muchpasture was “quantum sufficit”? — H. A. O.

97. The origin of many of the parks in England — H. A. O.98. Rot. Hund. II. 463: “si ipse habeat pullum vel boviculum et

laboravit cum illo, non potest vendere sine licentia domini, si nonlaboravit, licitum ei vendere sine licentia.”

99. Obligatio quo tenentur vassalli oves suas in faldam dominicamimmittere ad stercorandos illius agros. Du Cange.—H. A. O.

100. On the same principle that a big boy makes a small one getinto his bed to warm it on a cold night. — H. A. O.

101. Hokeday, or Hockday, i.e., highday. A holiday formerly heldin England on the second Tuesday after Easter, to commemorate theexpulsion of the Danes in the time of Ethelred. Highdays and holidays.

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102. Usque ad vincla, subaud. Petri, 13 August, o.s. St. Peter’sday. — H. A. O.

103. Adaeratio, i e., fixing a money value on labour services, orinstead of them. — H. A. O.

104. 23 Edward III. Chap.105. John Reeves. “History of the English Law.” Dublin, 1787,

vol. iii. 308, et seq.106. See the Extracts from the Rolls of Parliament, by Thomas

Wright, on the political condition of the English peasantry during theMiddle Ages, in the Archaeologia, vol. xxx. London, 1844, p. 244, etseq.

107. Loc. cit. vol. iii. p. 312 and 313.108. Scriven, a treatise on copyhold, custumary freehold, and

ancient demesne tenure, 3rd edit. Lond. 1833. Vol. i. p. 55. A copy-holder has, in judgment of law, but an estate at will.

109. “The whole of the manor lands, with all appurtenances there-unto belonging.”—H. A. O.

110. Such was the rise in wages that the King and Parliamenttook up the matter, at is shown by the Statute of labourers, 23 Edw. III.“Come nadgairs centre le malice de servanty qu’eux furent pareissouseset nient voillant servir apres la pestilence sanz trop outrageouses low-ers prendre, feut ordine par notre seignur le Roi,” &c. &c.; i.e., aslately it was ordained against the pernicious practices of labourers,inasmuch as they were lazy and refused to work after the plague, ex-cept at outrageous wages, by our lord the King, &c. &e. The statutethen goes on to fix a rate at which the labourer was compelled to workunder pain of imprisonment. A labourer got twopence or threepence aday, according to the season.—H. A. O.

111. Rogers mentions the leases with manorial inventories asclosely analogous to the metairie of South-Western Europe (p. 25); butthe essence of the metairie does not consist in that the “half farmer”has no proper inventory, but in the partitioned husbandry; i.e., it con-sists in that the landlord draws no fixed money rent, or personal ser-vices, but takes a moiety of the farm produce. [Metairie is a word de-rived from the mediaeval Latin term medietare, because under the sys-tem the land was cultivated under the conditions “ad medietatem


fructuum.”—H. A. O.]112. Quit-rent, from “quietus redditus,” a rent reserved for grants

of land by the payment of which the tenant was “quieted,” or quit fromall other service. Blackstone.—H. A. O.

113. Town here is manifestly used in its old sense, not of city, butdwelling-place, or village.

114. The Sermons of the Rev. Father in God and Constant Martyrof J. Ch. Hugh Latimer.

115. Extract in Strype, Eccl. Mem., vol. li. p. 441. Edit. 1721.Froude, l.c. p. 73.

116. And by their natural logic they would leason, “how theseconjugate, these yoke-fellows, gentleman and gentlenes should be ban-ished so for asunder.” Strype, vol. ii. part ii. p. 130.—H. A. O.

117. Strype, Memorials, vol ii. p. 172.118. An Extract from the Petition, according to MS. Domestic

Edward VI, vol. v. (State Paper Office), is to be found in Fronde, l.cit.vol. v. 78, 79.

119. For the benefit of rich inclosers as well as the poor suffer-ers.—Strype, l. cit.

120. Parliament Hist. i. p. 59, and Strype, Memor. ii. 134.121. See concerning this dialogue the author’s essay in the

“Zeitschrift für die Gesammte Staatswissenschift,” 1863, vol MX p. 369,et seq.

122. The book appeared for the first time in 1557, under the titleof “A hundredth good pointes of husbandry”; and then in a number ofnew editions with additions and corrections by the author, then called“Five hundredth pointes of good husbandry”; the author used the edi-tion of William Mayor, London, 1812.

123. Especially see chap. liii. A comparison between championcountry and severall. This comparison commences:—

“1. The country inclosed I praise,The t’other delighted not me,For nothing the wealth it doth raiseTo such as inferior be.“7. More plenty of mutton and beef,Corn, butter, and cheese of the best;More wealth anywhere to be brief,

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More people, more handsome and prest,Where find ye, go search any coastThan there, where inclosure is most.“8. More work for the labouring manAs well in the town as the field, etc.(On the other hand)The champion robbeth by night,And prowleth and filcheth by day, etc.”

124. e.g., in October Abstract: —“23. Two crops and away Most champion say—“25. What champion knows That custom shows“26. First barley ere rye, Then pease by and by, Then fallow for

wheat Is husbandry great.”In a more detailed manner, with barley as a summer crop, chap.

xvii.: —“First rye, and then barley, the champion says, Or wheat

before barley be champion ways; But drink before bread-corn withMiddlesex men, Then lay on more compass* and fallow again.”* Manure, compost. —H. A. O.125. “T’ one taketh his season as commoners may, The t’other

with reason may otherwise say.”126. See on the decay of the corporate towns in the Statute-book,

introduction to 3 Henry VIII. c. 8, and Eden, “ State of the Poor,” I. pp.109, 110. Eden ascribes the bad condition of the small towns to an-other circumstance, which certainly co-operated thereto. His opinionis, that the exclusive privileges of the guilds impeded the increase ofindustry in the ancient towns, and forced it into the new districts whichwere not endowed with municipal rights. In addition to the revival ofLondon in that point of view, he continues, that of Birmingham andManchester is also very remarkable in that century. On the rapid growthof London at that period see Macpherson’s “Annals of Commerce,” II.pp 166, 227.

127. See Helferich on the periodical variation in the value of theprecious metals. Nuremberg, 1843, p. 90.

128. Chronicon Rusticum Commerciale, or Memoirs of Wool, byJohn Smith, 1 vol., London, 1747, p. 127.

129. The “petra,” our stone, was a weight among the Anglo-Sax-


ons, the value of which, vaguely estimated, was about 141b. Then, asnow, it varied for different wares—meat, 81b.; glass, 51b.; cheese, 161b.;hemp, 32lb. There can be little doubt that in rude ages, as is the casenow in India, a round stone was made use of instead of a regular weight,hence the name.—H. A. O.

130. In fact, the Legislature of those times favoured the partition-ing of the land, which was then in a state of veritable community andcopartnership. The laws, 31 Henry VIII. c. 1, and 32 Henry VIII. c. 32,enact that joint-tenants, as well as tenants in common, can be bound bya writ “de partitione facienda,” to be devised in the Chancery for thepartitioning of the common property. But in all the cases in which therights of the lords of the soil were opposed to the pasture lights of thecommon, these laws did not apply.

131. The close connection which arose in England between theintroduction of the field-grass husbandry and the supplanting the smalllanded proprietor, also showed itself in a precisely similar manner inthe agrarian history of Mecklenburg. Up to the commencement of theeighteenth century there the intermixed manor and peasant lands werehusbanded by a three-field husbandry in common; but the introductionof the Holstein system of field-grass husbandry on inclosed farms gaverise to the supplanting of the peasants on an extreme scale. Vide on thissubject “Agriculture and the Peasant” in the History of Mecklenburg,by Ernst Boll, Neubraudenburg, 1856, vol. 2nd, p. 463, et seq. (DieBauern und die Landwirthschaft in der Geschichte Mecklenburgs.)

132. Here and there certainly there is a question of buying up thesmall plots of land. Vide, e.g., a contemporaneous poem on unsatiablepurchasers by Strype, Memor. I. 132. This poem is as follows:

“An unreasonable rich man dyd ryd by the wayWho for lack of men hadd with him a boy,And as he past by a pasture most pleasant to see;Of late I have purchased this ground, Jack, quothe he; Mary, maister, quod the boy, men say over al,That your purchase is great, but your household is smal.Why, Jack, quod thys riche man, what have they to do?Would they have me to purchase, and keep great house too?I cannot tell, quod the boy, what maketh them to brawle,But they say that you purchase the Devil, his dam, and all.”

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Strype.H. A. O.133. Somerset.—H. A. O.134. A supplication of the poor commoners to the king, given in

Strype, vol. i. p. 398, et seq.135. Reeves, l. cit. vol iv. p. 232, et seq.136. Lord Lincoln, on making his motion concerning the inclosures

of commons, said of these Inclosure Acts, “This I know, that in nine-teen cases out of twenty, committees sitting in this House on privatebills, neglected the rights of the poor, I do not say that they wilfullyneglected those rights— far from it; but this I affirm, that they wereneglected in consequence of the committees being permitted to remainin ignorance of the rights of the poor man, because by reason of hisvery poverty he is unable to come up to London to fee counsel, toprocure witnesses, and to urge his claims before a committee of thisHouse.” — “Hansard,” 1 May, 1845.

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